South Park and the Cartoon Wars

I posted this last night at Belmont Club after watching the latest episode of South Park, in which Comedy Central censored a showing of Mohammed:

You know, I was thinking. If we are truly involved in an ideological war, what we need are ideological tools. (If, which I think is correct, memes have power, the course of human history could be understood as an arms-race of ideas in addition to an arms-race of weaponry.)

Now, a tool is something built for a purpose. With memes, it would be a message. An incredibly useful tool would be usable on a wide variety of heteroglossia. It's message would be eminently communicable. It's effect would be distributed broadly.

Well, I think--and here I am being awfully presumptive--that the most recent South Park is precisely the tool we've been looking for. The message, the medium, the outcome--all are absolutely aligned to accomplish our goal: the goal, obviously, of steeling our people against the memetic onslaught of multicultural suicide.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker have given us a gift, and we should use it.

The conduit of communication in 21st Century America flows from the people. Here, a niche market like Comedy Central can produce something that, if absorbed by a vast amount of people, can change the way we think--and therefore change the way we live.

The blogosphere is an entry key into this flow of communication. We can find something overlooked, force it into the national conversation, and change the way people think about a certain issue. Our power comes from discovery and persistence, our refusal to accept partial answers to partial questions. We can agitate what's important onto the national radar screen. Once sufficiently agitated, the MSM will pick up on it, and the message will be broadcast.

Well, here we have our chance. We can make the South Park episode the topic du jour, the catalyst, the entry vehicle into the issue of cultural certitude. If we talk about it enough, if we make an issue about it in the blogosphere, sooner or later the nation, and then the world, will be talking about it. And then the world will change (I'm not joking, this is not a pollyannish assertion; if the world were divided into those who condemn South Park's message and those who defend, the world would change). Now's our chance.

Of course, we could just sit back and wait until others make a big deal about it. I think it's inevitable.

UPDATE: It looks like it was inevitable. It is currently the number one search term at Technorati, which tracks these things. And yes, Comedy Central confirmed they censored Mohammed--for safety.