| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Kabulvision | ||||
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The loons just get crazier and crazier, don't they? Yeah, this show "advances Islamic fundamentalism"? Why? Well, it's because there's no Islamic fundamentalism in the show. Um,... what?
The Florida Family Association is a group of right-wing Christian loons who can't stand anything but right-wing Christians getting positive attention in America. It's as simple as that. (Note that their mission statement specifically mentions promoting "biblical values.")
They oppose this "All-American Muslim" show not because it presents Muslims in a positive way, but because it shows them as anything other than complete villains. You see, anything which might promote religious tolerance is wrong, because only their own faith is true. And American television must indicate that at all times.
The really funny thing about the right-wing obsession with Sharia law is that these loons aren't opposed to religious laws trumping secular law in America, not in the slightest. They just want to impose their own religious laws.
There is not, in fact, the slightest chance of Sharia law being accepted in America, and these people know that. But what they're fighting isn't Sharia law, but tolerance, but freedom of religion, but the separation of church and state. They are, in fact, America's Taliban.
As this guy admits - and Jon Stewart beautifully makes clear - this show is harmful to the "belief structure" of these right-wing loons. Yes, anything which contradicts what they really want to belief is harmful to their belief structure.
And since they have nothing - not reason, not evidence, not logic - to back up their belief structure, they're forced to simply try to prevent any competing ideas from getting through the bubble of their faith.
Here's the follow-up clip, which continues with this story:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Kabulvision - A New Lowe | ||||
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Yes, Lowes was cowardly enough to pull their advertising. But Lowes isn't the only coward. According to the FFA website, Home Depot also promised not to advertise on the show again.
Of course, FFA is exaggerating a bit. Here's their own quote of Home Depot:
We checked into this and although one of our commercials did appear during one of these episodes, we are not a sponsor of this show and we do not have any advertising scheduled to run on future episodes. Thank you very much for contacting us.
So they didn't exactly promise anything - or apparently change their plans in any way. But this response still seems to be rather cowardly, don't you think? And you can bet that Home Depot won't touch this show with a ten-foot pole now - nor will other potential advertisers. But this isn't quite as bad as Lowes. Yeah, I know that's not saying much.
I certainly don't want to defend "The Learning Channel" - what a laugh! - or "reality TV" (an even bigger oxymoron) in general. But what about the next TV network considering a show where Muslim Americans aren't presented as nothing but potential terrorists?
Television lives on advertising, and TV networks tend to be even bigger cowards than most corporations. Personally, I'd think that controversy would be good advertising. I would have never even heard of this show without this "controversy."
And now that I have heard of it, I won't be very eager to patronize Lowes. On the other hand, if they'd had a spine, if they'd stood up for the American way, I would have felt just the reverse. Well, thanks to Jon Stewart, this "controversy" got a little bigger than they expected, don't you suppose?
Good! I have little respect for cowards.
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