Originally published by San Diego Rostra on 4-24-10
According to The Los Angels Times on April 21, 2010:
A radical Islamic group has warned “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone after a recent episode of the Comedy Central cartoon depicted the prophet Muhammad in a bear costume.
“We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show, “a ;posting on the site Revolutionmuslim said. Van Gogh was the Dutch filmmaker shot to death in 2004 after he made a film critical of the treatment of women in Islamic society. “This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”
“South Park” has long flirted with trouble over depicting Muhammad, which is considered offensive to many Muslims. Wednesday’s episode was built around the efforts of the “South Park” kids to bring the prophet to their town, only to realize the difficulty of doing so without showing his face or body. He is ultimately shown wearing a bear mascot’s costume.
In 2006, Comedy Central censored the producers’ plans to depict Muhammad in the “Cartoon Wars” episodes. The series has kicked up so many battles on this and other fronts that “South Park controversies” has its own Wikepedia page.
A Comedy Central spokesman said the network had no comment. Attempts to load the Revolutionmuslim.com website on Wednesday afternoon were unsuccessful.
Look, South Park for me is a hit and miss show. Often they’re hilarious. Other times, they’re so disgusting I have to turn the program off. But whatever you may think of the program, one thing Trey Parker and Matt Stone have demonstrated these past few years is guts. They have been willing to hit both the left and the right. They challenge and satirize everything from Political Correctness to Islam. This makes them a little braver than the Hollywood elites who find the criticism of Islam Politically Incorrect and wouldn’t speak against Islamo Terrorism if they’re lives depended on it. As a matter of fact, in some cases, they may feel their lives depend on not being critical. But they’ll speak against Christianity in a heartbeat because they know their hearts will continue to beat and deep down inside, whatever problems Christianity seems to invoke, the fear of being murdered by Christians is not one of them.
Well, if South Park Creators have a spine, their network Comedy Central does not. Here’s a more recent news story. This one from: The New York Daily News on April 22, 2010.
South Park’s parody of the Prophet Muhammad has morphed into a parody of self-censorship….
On last night’s episode, the prophet was referred to only with a “bleep” sound and his image was blocked out with the word “censored.”
According to the “South Park” Web site, the studio added additional audio bleeps. Thursday afternoon, the duo released a statement in response to Comedy Central’s decision to censor their show.
“In the 14 years we’ve been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn’t stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn’t some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle’s customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn’t mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We’ll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we’ll see what happens to it.”
Some of you may not give a hang about a mere cartoon, but you should know that such intimidation is going on all over the world. Even our pentagon caved in this week when Muslim members said they were offended that Franklin Graham was going to be a guest speaker on National Day of Prayer. Graham had called Islam an “evil religion” after 9/11. Although he qualified his remarks to talk about evil deeds, and explained that he loved the Muslims as people but was merely criticizing their religion, none of it matters. He’s been canceled and organizations like CAIR (Council for American Islamic Relations) are vocally approving of the decision, labeling Graham’s view as, “distorted, intolerant, and divisive.”
Of course, when the Koran commands Muslims not to befriend Jews or Christians (Surah 5) or to kill any who do not want to convert to Islam,(Surah 9) I suppose we aren’t supposed to view that as divisive. Or, if you want to cry “foul” because I dared to indict Islam by turning to its own scripture, how about the fact that self righteous, tolerant, CAIR has been caught diverting funds to both Hamas and Al Qaeda?
Before, we go on: I know, I know. There are also peaceful Muslims in the world, Muslims who either do not read their own scriptures or Muslims who reinterpret their own scriptures. Fair enough, but let’s face it; the violent Muslims are making a louder noise and the noise seems to be working.
Lately liberal pundits and politicians have expressed grave concern for the Tea Party movement. They talk as if they’re just waiting for an act of violence from these (so far) peaceful demonstrators. But when television creators truly have their lives threatened, and when somebody like Franklin Graham merely reminds us that such threats seem to abound, these same lefties roll over and play dead. They warn us against those who have not threatened violence and stick their heads in the sand for those who have. If we lose our freedom it will not be the result of a more powerful enemy. The fault will be our Political Correctness, laced with cowardice and sprinkled with stupidity.
This is Bob Siegel, making the obvious, obvious.
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