I don’t think Rudi was equating Islam and Christianity, as much as he was advocating equal opportunity ridicule. I also don’t think you needed to call him a bigot or despicable. That was a little overreactive, don’t you think? WWJD?

CC is just as pathetic. They seem to have plenty of intestinal fortitude to offend Christians, but can’t stomach “offending” Muslims. How nauseating is it to watch some CC comedians preen as they deliver “social commentary” jokes about GWB or Christians? I don’t see how “speaking truth to power” is supposed to make them appear brave in our society, wherein virtually no danger of physical retaliation exists for their expressions of outrage or criticisms of our government and/or Christian institutions. If they truly had the courage of their convictions they would “speak truth” (or, in the case of CC, allow others like SP, to) about the real threat to our freedoms–Islamofascism.

CC has acknowledged that they censored the image of Mohammed out of fear. FEAR – not economics, not religious tolerance, but FEAR.

Great, now that the prescendent is set – any religion or group of people can prevent public debate thru terroristic means.

This is a slippery slope and I believe that those who dismiss this as a non-issue are in complete denial.

Ideally, I’d want CC to permit some clever image that manages to simultaneously flip the bird to terrorists and still respect the sensibilities of all other Muslims.

Which means I think it was also poor taste to instead show imagery offensive to Christians instead. And during the Palm Sunday-Easter week, no less.

However: South Park is pretty much well-known to be Offensive Territory, so anyone who ventures there without a thick skin deserves the poking they get. Moreover, CC’s words and actions (”in light of recent world events, we feel we made the right decision”; offending one religion it knew it could get away with, rather with one it couldn’t) betray its motive. They’re not being brave.

But then, to be fair, they’re also not necessarily being cowardly. Suppose you’re a CC exec with the power to make this decision, and you decide to show the episode anyway. One week later, an angry mob of Muslim boys breaks into one of CC’s studios and kills 20 studio staffers. (You, being an exec, were miles away in an office building with security.) How brave would you feel then?

We ask corporations of all types to examine their ethics all of the time, and to operate more ethically. We’ve even done that when it’s counter to their strictly business interests.

The television world–broadcast, no less, which requires more audience and higher ratings than cable–has displayed moral courage many times in its history. I fail to see why what I’m saying is so controversial here.

How about I just apologize for bringing up the concept (and especially for the way I phrased the original comment–the wow part) and drop it.

Comedy Central may be bullies (I certianly don’t like South Park’s repeated jabs at Catholicism), but how are we not bullies if we’re doing something intentionally to offend others for no other reason than to offend them? How are we better?

Yeah, someone’s going to make the point, “Hey, but Tim, when they showed the episode of a statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding out the butt, you didn’t riot.” No, I just turned the damn thing off midway through and went on with my life. I think the point that we’re a better society than radical middle eastern Islam has already been proven, what with our flushing toilets and freedom of religion. The lack of riots over Jesus defecating on the American flag proves nothing that we didn’t already know.

I also think that if the episode had been shown uncensored, we wouldn’t have had riots here in America, because again, we’re a better society and we don’t have a large number of radical Muslims. Instead, we’ve got kind, peace-loving Muslims whom I imagine are getting a little pissed off that everyone here wants to keep doing things for no other reason than to show they’ve got the right to piss them off.

Knuckling under to riots, threats, and intimidation will only produce more of same. We are teaching them that IT WORKS. Want respect? Use threats and violence.

If the West is going to hand the keys over to the Islamists, this is how it begins.

Also, I made this argument in the Michael Graham case, the shock jock who get fired for calling Islam a terrorist organization. Comedy Central has economic concerns and advertisers to think of. And who knows what they were told behind the scenes. I would have let the guys run the cartoon, given the information I have now, but given other information that only network execs have, I might be whistling a different tune.

One last thing…moral courage? People, this is cable television. The only people who show moral courage are journalists who potentially or demonstratably put themselves in harm’s way to report the truth. Everybody else on television are simply news personalities, actors and reality TVites. Moral courage isn’t part of their equation. Ratings are. And maybe, in the end, that’s what we’re seeing. A ratings ploy to pull in more “South Park Conservatives.” Now that would be a courageous move. ;-)

Moral courage isn’t important? The lack of it isn’t a sign of sickness?

Wow.

Are you saying that the outrage from a Muslim minority has more economic power than the numbers that actually watch CC? That doesn’t seem demographically supprtable.

“…potential economic pressures…” I don’t think that this was an economic decision, but I do think that there were “potential pressures,” real or imagined. The point here is that, like Borders, CC decided that it wasn’t even going to risk anything, as if their execs were under some secret warning. This is only mildly absurd.

“And Comedy Central doesn’t want to be in the middle of a controversy over showing the cartoons.” Huh? That’s what they do! Their stock and trade is controversy, especially over cartoons. CC has demonstrated that there is now a special class of people–Muslims (right up there with Scientologists)–that is above ridicule, at least for them.

CC has basically exposed themselves as weaklings. Let’s face it, it isn’t all that difficult or edgy to criticize Bush, Rummy, etc. or to take a swipe at Jews, Christians, Hindus, whatever. So much for irreverence.

Why don’t we ALL just sew depictions of Mohammed on our sleeves, like the yellow star?

Jeez amba, because this isn’t that important. And it certainly isn’t “sick.” Moussaoui is sick. Comedy Central is simply scared.

Listen, I think CC can determine whatever they hell they want to show or not show on their network. That’s their business. They have advertisers to think about. And I’m sure most other networks would do the same given potential economic pressures. Speech isn’t free on paid programming. It’s regulated by dollars and sense. And Comedy Central doesn’t want to be in the middle of a controversy over showing the cartoons. Sure, they’re going to take some flack from the blogosphere for a while, but I think that’s a risk they’re willing to take.

However, if it were me, I’d let the South Park boys show the cartoons. Personally, I think rebroadcasting them isn’t a wise move, but I wouldn’t stand in their way. Of course, then again, I probably would never be the head of a network either. ;-)

Why don’t we ALL just sew depictions of Mohammed on our sleeves, like the yellow star?

Personally I find this to be a scary turn of events. As a woman, I get scared when I see society take a step backwards.

Comedy Central, on the other hand, only antagonizes those whom it’s safe to antagonize. I knew kids like that, too. We called them “bullies.”