February 9, 2006

The American Thinker

The American Thinker -Strange New Respect

This full piece is well worth contemplating by everyone including the 'antique' media as the author describes the MSM.

"With the sole exceptions of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Riverside
Press-Enterprise, and New York Sun, no significant American newspaper has dared
to publish the 12 cartoons at the root of the protests, embassy burnings and
deaths roiling the Islamic world. Despite intense public interest in this major
story, Americans who do not view their news on the internet have almost no
chance to actually see these key images. Such remarkable restraint is a rather
new phenomenon in American journalism.
The new standard has been set and is already being observed with a remarkable degree of unanimity. None of the broadcast television network news have shown the cartoons, with the exception of ABC’s Nightline*. CNN did televise them but obscured the images
with dancing pixels. Fox News Channel has shied away, even when commentator
Michelle Malkin
brought along her own visual aid to the Hannity & Colmes broadcast on Tuesday, February 7.
Imposing current day politically correct standards on historic figures is all the rage these days, when the names of slaveholders Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are deemed unfit to grace the names of schools in some circles.
Perhaps it is time we re-evaluated Charlie Chaplin’s famous movie
The Great
Dictator
, which mercilessly and insensitively mocked Adolf Hitler. At the
time of its theatrical release in 1940, millions of Germans worshipped Der
Fuhrer with religious passion, and the United States enjoyed peaceful, if
strained relations with Germany. The pain which many Nazis must have felt at
seeing their beloved leader denigrated and made to look ridiculous must have
been searing.
If sensitivity to the spiritual feelings of believers in great leaders were the real criterion by which media gatekeepers decided what to and broadcast, then Andres Serrano’s
Piss
Christ
would never have been seen, and universal media condemnation would have greeted the theatrical release of The Last Temptation of Christ.
Let’s be honest about the current sudden new respect the antique media exhibit toward religion.
It is physical intimidation which is at the heart of the media’s new-found principle of tender sensitivity to the feelings of certain religious believers. The assassination of Theo Van Gogh sent a message loud and clear to everyone contemplating a critical look at Islam or
Muhammad. For all their brave talk of speaking truth to power, most people in the media with established careers, families, and lives will sacrifice principle to save themselves from possible harm or death."

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