Never in the field of human conflict have so many cowered so much before so few. That’s just what Winston Churchill might say were he around today observing the political correctness that reigns in his and other Western nations’ media. And a prime example occurred this past Wednesday when a British news outlet suddenly and, some would say, comically cut the video feed (shown below) of a journalist complaining about the media’s refusal to show the recent Charlie Hebdo cover. And why?
Because the journalist showed the Charlie Hebdo cover.
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The brave outlet was Sky News UK (a sister channel of Fox News), which was, ironically, doing a special report about the latest Charlie Hebdo cover and informing at the bottom of the screen, “Many vendors in Paris have sold out the latest edition of ‘Charlie Hebdo.’” It was interviewing a former journalist of the magazine named Caroline Fourest, who lamented how the media had sold out. In a heavy French accent she said, “I’m very sad, very sad that journalists in UK do not support us, that journalists in UK betray what journalism is about by thinking that people cannot be grown enough to decide if a drawing is offending or not because you’re not even showing it. Which is completely crazy, that in UK you cannot show a [inaudible] drawing as that.”
And that was that.
Because at this point Fourest was leaning over and picking up a copy of the recent Charlie Hebdo edition. She then held it up for the audience — and was able to utter two more words, “with Mohammed,” before Sky News cut away.
Even the cameraman was well prepared for the censorship in question, reflexively raising the camera slightly as Fourest raised up the magazine so that only its title and the very top of the Mohammed image could be viewed.
Then “poof!” Fourest was gone.
A seemingly stressed, unnamed (in the video clip) female reporter then appeared whose first audible words were “Break. Sky News. We’ve chosen not to show that cover, so we’d appreciate Caroline, uh, not showing that. I do apologize, uh, for any of our viewers who may have been offended; as you know, here at Sky News we’ve take an editorial decision not to feature the cover of Charlie Hebdo.”
Ironically, though, there was probably no better way to prove Fourest’s point. This fact, the sadly comedic timing of the cut-away, was noted by American Thinker’s Carol Brown, who wrote, “If I had not known that this clip is legitimate, I would have found it a hilarious bit of satire. Perhaps an audition tape for Saturday Night Live. But, alas, it was real.” And really telling. As Brown also opined, “This is the world in which we live. A world of brutes and cowards.”
And state and social-code brutishness that make the people cower. While Sky News might have been afraid of raising Islamist ire and becoming the next Charlie Hebdo, one also must consider that the U.K. — like virtually all the Western world — has “hate speech” laws prohibiting much criticism of, for instance, Islam and homosexuality. Just as significant are the politically correct social codes that have begotten those laws (when such codes become passionately embraced they often are legislated) and which cause people within the private sector to censor themselves — and each other.
As for examples of the application of U.K. hate-speech laws and corresponding guidelines, they include a political leader arrested for quoting Winston Churchill, the banning of award-winning talk-show host Michael Savage from Britain, a visiting American man arrested for preaching against homosexuality, a “National Children’s Bureau” advisory that toddlers who say “yuck” in response to foreign food may be “racist,” a headmistress who threatened to attach a “Racial Discrimination note” to the record of any child who didn’t attend an Islamic workshop, and a woman who reported Muslim pedophilia being forced into “Diversity Training.”
And so go the cultural differences. Westerners are training in diversity while jihadists are training their sights on Westerners. But both groups do agree on one thing: Criticism of Islam should be censored.
