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Written by: Diana West
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 9:50 AM 

Melanie Phillips reports on the not merely degraded, not merely grotesque, but also thoroughly berserk and cruel state of British entertainment through an episode in which BBC "comedians," going for "laughs," publicly tormented and ridiculed 78-year-old Andrew Sachs (who many American viewers will remember as the waiter "Manuel" on the positively brilliant show "Fawlty Towers"). This has inspired a massive, and massively healthy outcry in Britain. Phillips explains:

To be exposed to British culture is to run a gauntlet of degradation, vulgarity, obscenity, prurience, voyeurism, cruelty and sadism. People suffer this onslaught in appalled silence. To protest is to court instant ridicule as a reactionary or would-be censor. But sometimes something happens which just blows the lid off, and the public’s fury and disgust and revulsion explode into the open. That’s what happened over the tormenting of Andrew Sachs. This is the revolt of millions of decent British people against the systematic hijacking of our society by the forces of cultural and moral nihilism, embedded in our intelligentsia and media elites which are destroying the deepest values of our once civilised society before our very eyes.

"The revolt of millions against the systematic hijacking of our society by ...forces ... embedded in our ... elites." Sounds marvelous. And it sounds necessary. Do you suppose we can arrange for just such a revolt Over Here on Election Day?

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