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South Park 14.05_200 & 14.06_201

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Season 14, episodes 5 (#200 overall) and 6 (#201 overall) have been pulled by Comedy Central because of vieled death threats made by proprietors of a purportedly Islamic web site. The site---called <a href="http://RevolutionMuslim.com">RevolutionMuslim.com</a><fn>---supposedly peddles Osama bin Laden support and celebrates 9--11. It's hard to tell because they're down right now and showing no signs of coming back up anytime soon. The proprietors of the site live in New York City and claim to be devout Muslims, though they are more likely devout businesspeople first and foremost.<fn> Their veiled threats---veiled enough for them to avoid prosecution, but direct enough for Comedy Central to pull Trey Parker and Matt Stone's episdodes---have garnered them and their web site a lot of attention. The rest of the Muslim world---shall we say, the "actual" Muslim world---has ignored what South Park was doing. And why should they care anyway? The whole situation is highly ridiculous. The proscription against imagery of the prophet of Islam seems wildly arbitrary, especially when enforced for non-Muslims. For the most out-there fundamentalists, not believing at all already warrants a death penalty, but it's hardly ever---if ever---carried out. So why all the fuss over showing Muhammed? How can you show a picture of someone of whom there are no pictures and who has been dead for 1400 years? It's like all the pictures of Jesus throughout the world showing him as white with blue eyes. As an Aramaic, that's hardly likely, but Christians seem to go for it. How will these extreme (-ly idiotic) Muslims know when someone makes a picture of Muhammed? Is it enough to just show someone wearing a turban? Or does that person have to have a beard too? What if you gave him breasts? Would that prove that it then <i>wasn't</i> Muhammed? Or is that like the bear suit on South Park? The act of labeling some non-invisible object as the great Prophet is enough to warrant the wrath of extreme (-ly idiotic) Muslims? Shall we try it? Here are some images from Google, though you could just stop by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammed">Wikipedia</a> and see several images of Muhammed, one of them even depicts him <iq>holding a sword and a crescent while trampling on a globe, a cross, and the Ten Commandments.</iq> Which of the following is the <i>real</i> Muhammed? Which ones are offensive? <div align="center"><img attachment="usa_sikh.jpg" align="left" class="frame" caption="Muhammed"><img attachment="mohammed32334.jpg" align="left" class="frame" caption="Muhammed"><img attachment="hello_kitty.jpg" align="left" class="frame" caption="Muhammed"></div> <div align="center"><img attachment="muhammad.jpg" align="left" class="frame" caption="Muhammed"><img attachment="0_01.jpg" align="left" class="frame" caption="Muhammed"><img attachment="080821.jpg" align="left" class="frame" caption="Muhammed"></div> <div align="center"><img attachment="osama_w.jpg" align="left" class="frame" caption="Muhammed"><img attachment="southpark-bestfriends.gif" align="left" class="frame" caption="Muhammed"><img attachment="jesus3.jpg" align="left" class="frame" caption="Muhammed"></div> Now what kind of idiot would find the above array of images and labels offensive? Puerile, useless, meaningless? Yes. Offensive? No. How would anyone be able to point to one of these pictures and say, "that's a picture of Muhammed". No one has ever seen him. He died hundreds and hundreds of years ago, long before the camera or even reliably true-to-life painting techniques were invented. He also happened to have started a religion that expressly forbade images of him, so we have a world that is as blissfully unaware of Muhammed's appearance as it is of Jesus's.<fn> No, even those Muslims who would choose to be offended by the grid above would have to choose the most stereotypically "Arab-looking" picture at which to be offended, just like the rest of us. It doesn't make any <i>sense</i>. Which is why the whole "The Muslim world will explode in a paroxysm of violence if you show an image of Muhammed" is probably largely a myth fomented by a Western polity extremely interested in portraying <i>all</i> Muslims as savage, backward and largely homicidal. If whatever passes for the leaders of the Muslim world---there isn't exactly a Pope or rigid hierarchical structure---actually does cry "Jihad!" and there are people who heed that cry and, instead of just being happy with all the extra hits on their web sites engendered by being mentioned incessantly on mainstream American media, actually commit acts of violence, does that prove that Islam is basically violent? What does it prove other than that there are fringe elements willing to commit violence in the name of ... well, not very much at all? They are not the majority. When a man flies his Cessna into an IRS building, are all reasonably wealthy tax-evaders immediately ostracized? No. Because Joe Stack was fringe and already caused all the damage he was going to cause. People that react to images of their great prophet with violence should instead be dealt with by the law. There is no use attempting to appease such people because there is no appeasing them. They're like small children or crazy partners: Give in once and you'll give in forever. Give them what they want and they'll want something else. You're bound to screw up with people like this sooner or later, so you might as well man up <i>before</i> you lose your dignity. As good ol' FDR said, <iq>There's nothing to fear...</iq> Some say it's only Muslims that are deferred to in this way, but Judaism is also no piker when it comes to suppressing unapproved lines of thought or policy. Accusations of anti-semitism fill the air every time anyone so much as breathes a bad word about Israel in the States. Legitimate and scholarly critics lose their faculty positions (Norman Solomon); former Presidents well-versed in the politics of the Middle East are ostracized for their views (Jimmy Carter). On page 880 of <i>The Great War of Civilization</i> by <i>Robert Fisk</i>, he tells of an incident in 1993 wherein a TV special that the Discovery Channel spent at least a million dollars making was canceled after one showing because it portrayed Israel in an unflattering light. Such self-censorship is even more troubling than that of Comedy Central, because it contributes materially to an ignorance of the crimes for which Americans will be made responsible. That Comedy Central won't let Trey Parker and Matt Stone show their rendering of Muhammed is less tragic than that the situation in the Middle East between Israel and what is left of Palestine cannot be accurately described for Americans. Two of the images in the grid above are actually from a "Super Happy Friends" show that aired before 9--11--2001 and depicted Muhammed with two flaming swords.<fn> This was before anyone even dreamed of accusing Islam of being crazy enough to declare Jihad on non-Muslims who do not abide by their law that forbids depictions of Muhammed. Times have changed. Some Muslims are happy to play into the hands of a West intent on portraying them as insane and only to be dealth with militarily. These Muslim fools think that they are doing Islam a service when they scream "uggabugga" and smile as the West hits the deck. Little do they realize that the West will come back up, morally righteous and with guns a-blazin'. South Park is a politically savvy and cutting cartoon, but it's kind of silly nonetheless. There are far worse forms of self-censorship---as in the case of the Discovery Channel above, which prevented Americans from seeing actually useful information---but all censorship is bad, and self-censorship is the worst. <hr> <ft>Or maybe it's <a href="http://revolutionislam.com">RevolutionIslam.com</a>, I'm not sure. One of those, anyway. The other one is a fake site that makes it look like the real site got hacked. Whatever.</ft> <ft>There are even <a href="http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/the-radical-muslim-group-the-threatened-south-park-creators-was-run-by-joseph-cohen-a-former-israeli-radical-who-used-to-live-in-a-settlement-in-the-west-bank/" source="" author="Scott Creighton" title="The “Radical” Muslim Group That Threatened South Park Creators Was Founded and Run by Joseph Cohen, a Former Israeli Radical Who Used to Live in a Settlement in the West Bank">rumors</a> that the site is <iq>run by a “converted” Israeli settler who studied at an orthodox rabbinical school in Israel before becoming a settler in the occupied territories</iq>, but I haven't seen that claim made by more reliable sources. Though it would be highly interesting and a wonderful ploy, actually---running an idiotic web site to foment incoherent American fear against Muslims because Americans think anyone with a beard looks "kinda sketchy".</ft> <ft>What are the odds that the image of Jesus above is an accurate depiction? He lived in the Middle Eastern desert and would have been a bit <i>swarthier</i>, no?</ft> <ft>That episode had been available online for years until it was removed a few weeks ago. To what end? It's not like they removed it from the <i>Internet</i>; anyone with a Bittorrent client can have the Muhammed episodes inside of ten minutes with a good internet connection. (I've seen all of them and they aren't Parker and Stone's best work, actually.)</ft>