The outpouring of evidence about Jimmy Savile shows that scores of people working in the BBC, Hospitals, childrens’ homes and even the police knew – not had heard gossip, really knew – about Savile’s paedophilia, but did not blow the whistle.
To me this correlates with the fact that scores of people in the FCO, MI6, MI5, Cabinet Office and other government agencies knew about extraordinary rendition, but did not blow – indeed still have have not blown – the whistle.
Savile had come to be seen as a big and peculiarly “Establishment” figure. The extreme rarity of whistleblowing in society is a strange phenomenon it is worth taking a few minutes to consider. Why did none of those now coming forward with their stories – not the victims, but the eye-witnesses – come forward at the time? Fear is probably the main answer, in particular fear of losing your job if you rock the boat. One problem in modern society is that people’s job is too central to their identity – most people when asked who they are, will reply what work they do. It is not just the need to earn money; your social status and personal relationships are often dependent on your position at work. To lose your job, or to become a social pariah within the organisation where you work, is too much for most people to contemplate.
That is why BBC producers who knew about Savile, saw him at it, did not blow the whistle on one of the Corporation’s biggest stars. It is why so few whistleblowers spontaneously come forward who have seen corruption in local government planning departments or defence procurement, to give an example. For most white collar crime there are people who are not directly involved bu see it and keep quiet. There is also the deterrent of self-incrimination – after a time silence becomes complicity.
In my own case of blowing the whistle on the international torture network, I know for certain that many other Ambassadors and diplomats knew just what was happening, most of them didn’t like it, but nobody but me blew the whistle. One Ambassador sent me a cheery “Rather you than me!” Some were actively complicit by being involved in rendition arrangements, others passively by not trying to stop it. This is why the Gibsom Inquiry into Complicity in Torture was shelved – it could not have proceeded without revealing that scores, possibly hundreds, are guilty, many of them still high-ranking civil servants. It was to protect them and the institutions in which they work, rather than to protect the high profile war criminals like Blair, Straw and Campbell, that the Establishment closes ranks. I always knew I would never be allowed to testify before an Inquiry into Complicity in Torture.
Whistleblowers are not just thrown out of their jobs. They almost never find new employment, as the one quality every employer values above any other quality is loyalty to the employer, right or wrong. Nobody wants a “disloyal” employee, whatever their motives. And if your whistleblowing involves the world of war and spying, they will try to set you up on false charges, like me, like Julian Assange, and not just sack you but destroy you.
Whistleblowers are rare because it is a near suicidal vocation, and everyone else is too scared to help. The Savile case teaches us far more important lessons than the prurient detail of a lurid life. Think about it.
Mary, it’s good to see a mention of John Hemming MP. Hemming is a leading campaigner against the secret courts and super-injunction gagging orders that are used to expedite the scandalous forced adoptions that were introduced by Blair. You can find much information and many links about this on Hemmimng’s blog:
http://johnhemming.blogspot.co.uk/
People actually threatened with losing their children through this unjust and inhuman system can find support and advice here:
http://www.fassit.co.uk/john_hemming_campaign.htm
JimmyGiro does himself no favours with his rantings about “Feminazis” and “Manginas”, but he did mention this issue a few days ago. I was too busy to add a comment with links.
Suhayl, thanks. I do hope the old man with the scythe stops following me for a bit, but of course he becomes a more frequent visitor as we age.
The visage of death follows us all, as we age, Clark. He hasn’t been picking on you.
Jay, 19 Oct, 10:38 pm:
Well, peace and tranquillity will be in there, and maybe wholesome work, though not too hard. But mostly, they’ll advertise Objects of Desire, sold with sex and sauce, and they’ll let the debt that people get into frighten them into hard work. They know what appeals and what doesn’t. They’ll mention the former, and avoid the latter, I reckon.
Encouraging paedophile grooming? Or just stupid software? I visited the Facebook page of a friend’s daughter recently; I didn’t even post or do anything there, I just looked. The next day, Facebook sent me, by e-mail, ten “Do you know?” suggestions, each with a “Friend Request” button. Of those ten, five were at school. Another three were at college. Hmmm…
Edit – no, probably not not “paedophile”. More like hebephile or ephebophile, probably.
Facebook is a trench of commercialism, Clark. My spouse created an account in my name to get gifts through the embedded games, and I get fraudulent messages from ‘friends’ who have not sent leading me to those surveys which do not end, or produce anything except ad revenue for FB.
Consider the source….
I have spoken to an American friend who has interesting pictures taken in one of the ‘Hudson tubes’ that cross the Hudson river.
It seems the ‘tube’ was a convenient means of transport in early 2001;)
So if you see me coming down the road
I’ll be much closer than you’ll ever know
‘Cause my vessel snakes beneath the waves
It’s a little too late for making me stay
Somebody told you, they couldn’t see
That I was in it for you
And you were in it for me
But in a city of so many people
You’ll find no one
As you make your moves through Hudson Tubes
And still no one
What is the trigger for moderation?
It is vital that you do not use either the Facebook “Find My Friends” feature, or the “Facebook E-mail Integration” feature offered by some e-mail providers. The first of these asks for both an e-mail address, and the password that goes with it. The second is “offered” on your WebMail page, which of course already knows your e-mail password; all you have to do is tick a box.
If you use either of these features, Facebook, and lots of Facebook “Applications” can log into your e-mail account and act just as if it were you. Your e-mail account is said to be “pwn’d”. If you’ve used these, untick the box, and change the password for your e-mail account.
I know, I know, Facebook promises not to abuse your e-mail account, and to “forget” (ie delete) its copy of your e-mail password after you’ve used the Friend Finder. Do we trust Facebook to so much as close a cupboard? Not me, thanks!
Ben, I do have a list of spam filter keywords somewhere. It’s hidden amongst my e-mails, I think. I’ll try to dig it out. More than one link gets your comment queued, too.
OccupyLondon March tomorrow:
http://afuturethatworks.org/
Ben, you can imagine my consternation when I received a “Friend Request” for the Hispanic dating, gossip and gambling site Quepasa.com, apparently from the seventy year old retired ambassador Brian Barder, via an e-mail address he’d never used with me:
http://www.barder.com/3171
http://www.barder.com/3179
He’d been sent a friend request himself, apparently from a colleague of his. He’d dealt with it on his WebMail page, and the Quepasa e-mail had used the WebMail page’s JavaScript to start the sign-up procedure automatically. Within seconds, QuePasa had accessed Barder’s online contact list, and was sending out hundreds of “Friend Requests”, to senior politicians, political dissidents, authors, journalists… It took him weeks to clean up the mess.
Mark, I’d best get to bed, as I want to be there tomorrow. Did you get my e-mail?
Fuck Fscebook,MySpace,Twitter et al…
Merely portals for spookdom to snoop without the expense of a full surevillance squad-or Full Pipe Take-as its better known.
You probably dont get a gig with the BBC,Whitehall,The MSM without being,ahem,”groomed” for future blackmailabity.
What a dark dark country this is revealing itself to be.
I feel very ill and frightened.
Jives, I wish you well. What can I offer? This system is not sustainable, so it will not be sustained. It will fall, eventually. Hang on in there, and Best wishes.
I got your message, Mark. I’m off to bed now. I hope I bump into some of the people here tomorrow, at the demo.
Goodnight.
Thanks as always Clark.
Your words and the goodly souls on this blog succour me.I’m grateful.
Sleep well fella.
I disagree that whistleblowing is all that rare. There are people everywhere who, within their own sphere influence and with the knowledge they have at their disposal speak out against wrong doing everyday. Whistleblowing isn’t the preserve of a saintly few, it’s what decent honest people do. To look for reasons and to be understanding of those who remained silent is to provide them not only with an excuse and a pardon, but somehow suggest that their behavior is quite typical, normal, understandable or morally neutral. That would be to undermine the best safeguard we have against wrong-doing of the real minority.
I beg to differ about whistle-blowing being quite common, especially in the USA.
Take the apparent murder of FBI agent Steve Ivens which occurred as the presidential campaign was heating up, but was simply buried with hardly a comment, much less a serious inquiry.
Ivens was the resident agent in Burbank, California who learned through his contacts at its airport that competitors of the Russian airplane maker Sukhoi were planning to sabotage its Superliner 100 – an ideal carrier for its restricted service, once it was given the go-ahead by the FAA in February for purchase by American carriers.
Ivens became more and more concerned by this criminal process, outside his Bureau responsibilities, and when the Sukhoi-100 was sabotaged, crashing into the Indonsian volcano, he started make all kinds of noises about it.
Ivens was particularly concerned by the murder of one of its passengers, American Peter Adler, who worked out of Burbank, and was trying to assist its purchase.
When Washington realised that Ivens was threatening to go official about it, it helped arrange his murder. When Obama came down to LA on Thursday, May 10th, as I recall, to go to a fundraiser at George Clooney’s LA home, but the President took a most curious way to get there – going out to Burbank by helicopter to meet its former Congressional representive, and coming back to LA by motorcade.
Of course, this made Ivens responsible for seeing to the President’s security, and official scuttlebutt said that Steve – who was last seen staggering around his home that night, muttering to himself – was the source of concern.
The next morning, he allegedly confronted the Russian consul in San Francisco – who was in an LA hotel visiting – that something terrible was afoot, and shouting out that “they are all insane”, making it look like he was some kind of Russian agent.
Then he went running off to the hills, east of there, and was never seen again for 85 days until some hitch hikers found his bad decayed body a mere 100 yards from the Catholic Church he regularly attended in Burbank.
The unprecedented Bureau and local police manhunt had some how missed it during that time. In the meantime, Obama’s campaign had collected $15 million from the Clooney-sponsored fundraiser – what got even Clint Eastwood involved in helping elect Mitt Romney President after Director Tony Scott had jumped off that LA bridge into the bay.
While the politicization of Hollywood has captured everyone’s attention, Ivens’ fate has escaped unnoticed.
Be there for us Mark and Clark. Good on you both for going. I cannot get there at the moment.
This is a good one. The video is nicely savage and subversive but also informative. I like Will Potter at the end of the video whose decency shines out. I don’t think it was made entirely clear that the SHAC 7 protests happened in this country at Huntingdon Life Sciences and that the protesters are in jail.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/10/countdown-to-armageddon/
The powers-that-be are feeling edgy I would surmise.
Ship to Gaza.http://shiptogaza.se/en
ESTELLE.* Plus que 38 MILES NAUTIQUES SUR 5.000. Rapport à 9H (temps Europe centrale). 38 miles jusqu’à GAZA. Bon moral à bord. — *38 NAVAL MILES left of 5000! Report 9 AM CET. 38 naval miles left to Gaza. High spirits on board
“Imaging Peace & War
Compare the Estelle to one of the Israeli warships that may attack it
”Estelle is a steel-hulled 53-metre ship originally (1922) built for North Sea trawl fishing. Before being converted into a Fair Trade vessel in the 1980s, she spent about fifteen years hauling gravel from Vuolahti to Helsinki. In 2012 the Estelle was sold to Ship to Gaza Sweden for an attempt to break and lift the Gaza blockade.”
Quotation from Estelle´s web page:{http://www.estelle.fi/en/estelle}
”The Protector is an integrated naval combat system, based on unmanned, autonomous, remotely controlled surface vehicles. Highly maneuverable and stealthy, the Protector can conduct a wide spectrum of critical missions, without exposing personnel and capital assets to unnecessary risk.
The Protector’s anti-terror mission module payload includes sensors and weapon systems. The search radar and the Toplite electro-optical (EO) pod enable detection, identification and targeting operations. The weapon systems are based on Rafael’s Typhoon remote-controlled, stabilized weapon station, capable of operating various small caliber guns. The highly accurate, stabilized weapon station has excellent hit-and-kill probability.” According to the Jerusalem Post, the purpose of the Protector is ”stopping Palestinian fisherman from sailing outside their permitted area or preventing flotillas from sailing to the Gaza Strip”.
Quotation from the Israeli weapon company Rafael´s web page: {http://www.rafael.co.il/Marketing/288-1037-en/Marketing.aspx?searchText=protector}
Leah McGrath Goodman’s website. There is a petition there to sign.
http://leahmcgrathgoodman.com/2012/09/11/freejersey-a-small-island-fights-for-its-democracy/
As she says, it’s not about left and right, it’s about right and wrong. Exactly.
‘Today is not a day to focus on right-wing versus left-wing politics, but the difference between right and wrong.
When a democratic government abuses its substantial legal, legislative and financial powers to crack down on journalists’ freedom of speech, force policemen and elected officials from their jobs and systemically dismantle its own checks and balances so as to deny each of its targets due process, clearly it is a government that has lost its way.’
Israel has attacked the Estelle in international waters:
http://www.gazaark.org/2012/10/20/israel-attacks-the-estelle-in-international-waters/
I’m feeling pessimistic today. Optimism is easily found in discussion with the like minded but how many read this blog or attend your meeting compared to those who prefer strictly come dancing? All I see is the same old stranglehold.
I have marched more times than I can remember. I cannot recall one that I would call a success. Today I will be buying tins of spam. I do not want to hear the same old speakers saying nothing.
Occupy London is a joke. Anyone who was there will know it as an organisation that from before it started that mirrored the class divisions, deceptions and machi nations of those it camped against. Very depressing.
The final straw for me this morning is Clarke linking to a Frank Zappa song. I have never understood our infatuation with the star system. And Zappa for chrissakes!
Perhaps I got out of the wrong side of bed but I do believe our future is Greek and some.
Topic: “The Extraordinary Rarity of Whistleblowing”
“MODERATION NOTICE
9/11 IS OFF TOPIC HERE – FURTHER COMMENTS ON 9/11 WILL BE DELETED”
And we say the Americans don’t get irony?
[Mod/Clark: SO DON’T ANYBODY DARE GO TO THE LINK BELOW!!!]:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-10/#comment-373212
Really well written post, Craig. It is not just your job that you lose as a whistleblower it is your life as you knew it.The book Unperson, a life destroyed by Denis Lehane describes this much better than i ever could.Yet for everything i have lost in my personal whistleblowing, it is not all bad. I certainly never take anything for granted anymore and i can sleep at night because i did the right thing.My journey has led me to inner peace and that’s priceless.
Sorry to hear that Nuid but as we know, Israel knows no law.
See attack on MV Dignity at the outbreak of Cast Lead, again in international waters and in the night.
http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/component/content/article/6-articles/palestineisrael/70-piracy-off-the-promised-land-the-ramming-of-the-dignity-with-clear-lethal-intent
{http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/videos/17-general/98-bbc5tv-interview-david-halpin-part-16}
Talking to a honest hardworking builder on tje subject of PVC panels on roofs mainly council. We agreed the absurbity of individua installations and especialy thise shaded by trees.
We agreed that industrial units probably make better positions for many reasons, I think the desert sun being the best ecologicaly and maximum usage to pool energy.
When I suggested his young son becomes a politician he saidhe doesn’t think much to.politiicians considering the fact that:
They don’t sleep straight…..
[Mod/Clark: The bulk of this comment has been moved to the 9/11 Post]:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-10/#comment-373212
@Komodo – you say it only takes a minute to accept the official story on 911, […]
The major demo in London today is an anti-austerity protest. I think it was initiated by the trade union Unison. I don’t know if the Occupy demo will be part of that, or something separate.
Phil, sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I never got the impression that Zappa was part of the mainstream corporate hype. He helped lots of talented but underrated musicians, whereas the corporate system mostly ignores musicians, concentrating instead on singers, and occasionally front-line singer-players. He publicised corporate record deal rip-offs, eventually setting up independently, and he upset the US government by working with East Europeans. Maybe I shouldn’t have linked Dinah Moe Humm, but the lyrics of I am the Slime are spot on.
“I noticed when living in Ireland, with a long history of occupation and rebellion, that there was a general disregard of the rules throughout the society (for good or ill), right down to every aspect of the Highway Code being taken as optional.” — kingfelix
“a general disregard of the rules throughout the society”?
That’s a pretty wild exaggeration. Especially for a society that had spent decades, if not hundreds of years, under the thumb of the Catholic Church, which scared the shit out of people from the age of seven onwards.
Plus, I haven’t seen as much as one Greek-style protest on the streets here since the “bailout” + massive ‘austerity measures’ that have been put in place to pay for it. Enda Kenny goes to see Merkel and rolls over to have his tummy tickled … It’s downright embarrassing. But still there is no disorder on the streets.
And as for this:
you do Craig a disservice with that implication. As Clark quoted, Craig wrote:
which leaves the door wide open to all sorts of different theories, in my view. And while there is/was a special thread for the subject, Craig was not engaged in it, for obvious reasons. It was a long and complicated thread, with many highly opinionated people involved. It was almost a full time job to keep up with it.
Craig hasn’t written about the subject since AFAIK. But I gather that the number of Americans who don’t believe the “official version” of what happened is increasing by the month. And rightly so. The official version is a pile of crap.
Clark, I’ll keep any other */** comments to the other thread.
Interesting article by Seumas Milne:
“The end of the New World Order”
‘The upheavals of the early 21st century have changed our world. Now, in the aftermath of failed wars and economic disasters, pressure for a social alternative can only grow’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/19/new-world-order?CMP=twt_gu