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.
Wikipedia is rubbish. The very idea of a “neutral point of view” in present society is mystified, absurd, and utterly indefensible. Anyone who hasn’t caught onto the fact that the US empire cloaks itself in robes of ‘freedom’ must have been asleep for 100 years. No surprise, then, that Jimmy Wales, who wants us all to give up the idea of being able to do stuff anonymously, is a fanatical follower of right wing scumbag Ayn Rand. Give it up!
Supporters of Wikipedia should change their perspective. Try it, please, before you either give up mentally or accept a role as a bosses’ cop of one kind or another. Wikipedia is an organisation with a global network of finger-wagging cops (moderators, admin, call them what you like) on almost every conceivable topic.
Does anyone seriously maintain that the observation that ‘anyone with an internet connection can participate’ is the slightest bit of a successful retort to that? It isn’t!
They use the word ‘encyclopedia’, but this is absolutely not a modern day version of Diderot’s Encyclopedie in France, where the beautiful watchword “definitions so rigorous that no tyranny can withstand them”.
Instead, it’s a modern-day version of Encyclopedia Britannica or the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, or similar official works in other countries.
A few posts to this thread have dealt with the psychopathology of keeping shtum. This important topic relates to the fundamentally schizoid character of a culture where ‘freedom’ is so often the ideology and yet everywhere the vast majority of people are in chains. And that schizoid combination is mainly getting ever more so, as capitalism’s technological revolution advances.
But as Rosa Luxemburg said, those who don’t move, don’t know they’re in chains.
“The Extraordinary Rarity of Whistleblowing”
The Extraordinary Rarity of Sanity in Mankind.
@Technicolour
Could be, indeed. I don’t know enough about encryption etc to be able to comment. (I’ve sent it to my son, too, to find out what he thinks.)
Nuid/Technicolour,
(Note, I’m capitalising the word “Free”, to remind people that I mean Freedom, not to do with price/money.)
Regarding “Silent Circle” encryption, I can’t tell from that article, we’ll have to wait a while before the answer becomes clear.
The vital factor is the licence. If it’s released under the GNU GPL or another Freedom licence, such that the source code is available, then the source code can be checked for security by the Hacker community, and the object code (executable) can be audited (ie. compile the source, and verify that this exactly matches the available executable). If it passes those tests, that one piece of software is good, ie trustworthy.
But nearly everyone is using non-Free, closed source software ‘phones, so the debate is rather academic. You need to be running the fully-Free, GPLed Replicant operating system, on an OpenMoko ‘phone, with no other non-Free software, or your super-duper Silent Circle may simply be bypassed.
Zimmerman is a good name to have involved, and his story, about how PGP encryption came to be Free, is a landmark in software Freedom. Zimmerman certainly was for real, and if this software gets properly licensed, then he still is.
But it takes more than just good software to keep things private and secure. You have to be sure that all senders and recipients have a degree of competence, and that they can all be trusted.
Sorry it’s not a simple answer. I hope that helps.
The BBC web page that reported the hijack of the Estelle followed it up with two links, under the heading ‘more on this story’.
They are this Zionist narrative:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19714796
that was introduced on the Estelle page with the words “Israel campaigns on ‘forgotten’ Jewish refugees” – A new Israeli campaign highlights the plight of Jewish refugees from Arab lands, but not without Palestinian resistance, writes Yolande Knell
and this page about Israeli politics, Israeli hopes in a new missile defense system and a retrospective on the campaign to free Gilad Shalit:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special_reports/middle_east_crisis/
whose link merely says “Israel and the Palestinians”.
So no Zionist bias there then! Where are the BBC whistleblowers that will come out about this?
George Harris at 20 Oct, 10:10 pm:
Evidence please. Especially the Ayn Rand bit.
I’m split on the anonymity thing, but then seeing as I’m a moderator, and I have to deal with you load of unruly “Anons”, I would be, wouldn’t I? I think anonymity has its place, but I sure wish that more contributors here had a bit more to lose by posting nonsense than the minor hassle of inventing a new username. If people’s Internet identities had a bit more invested in them, if reputation was more important, there would be a lot less shit on the Internet.
And why does this matter? Remember that we’re a small group here. Find something on this site that you know to be true, but which contradicts something as reported by the BBC. Print out both pages, so you can see that one is craigmurray.org.uk and the other is bbc.co.uk. Take them out on the streets, show them to a hundred people and ask them which one they trust more.
It’s all very well us faffing around anonymously on the Internet, but it fails to have much effect because the Internet is huge, and most people don’t know which bits they can trust.
Thanks Clark. Very interesting.
I take your point about “no other non-Free software, or your super-duper Silent Circle may simply be bypassed.” And also the fact that one’s address book might be somewhat limited! It’ll be interesting to see if any more of these apps are produced. I don’t doubt that there would/will be a demand for them.
‘Night
Nevermind
I note that I am the only contributor to this thread who bewails the passing of Christian moral values as epitomised by the establishments active support for child abuse.
There are many animists in Africa that still revere the occult savagery of pre-Christian, pre-Islamic belief. Even in London children are murdered on suspicion of witchcraft.
Why would not any intelligent person remove the shrines of barbarity? Do you not understand that Savile was under the protection of Zionism, in powerful circles like the BBC and government? Their objective is to destroy Christian compassion for children and general morality which protects the young.
Savile was as much a satanist is thos who worshipped the sun in Africa in 8000 B.C.
N_ at 20 Oct, 10:24 pm:
Of course it has admins, and of course they have their biases. I’ve encountered that myself; the operating systems that get called “Linux” should be called “GNU/Linux”, and the Wikipedia page on Linux is wrong; it calls Linux “an operating system”, but Linux is just a kernel, and the much greater majority of it, which was begun nine years earlier, is called GNU. But this error is just in the English version of Wikipedia, because the English admin is biased. Go to the German Wikipedia, and you’ll see that they’ve got it right.
But what do you want, anyway? Do you think that you should be the one that decides? As Wikipedia evolves, it becomes more accurate.
Stop moaning, and stop depreciating the best system we’ve got. Go and get involved, or you’ve no valid complaint.
As to “neutral point of view”, all material on Wikipedia has to be backed by “reliable sources”. Contentious issues are argued in all directions, and Wikipedia has to include them all, so long as they’re backed by a “reliable source”; removal of well-sourced material is “vandalism”, and will be reverted.
The argument over what counts as a reliable source and what doesn’t is absolutely vital. This is another area where involvement of as many people as possible is vitally important. What do you do about something like the UK Daily Mail, for instance? Sometimes it carries important stories that other papers won’t touch (eg. Dr David Kelly), but there’s tons of misleading nonsense and pro-Israeli propaganda in it, too. I did a fair amount of work to correct a Wikipedia hate-piece against Raed Salah, which, before I started, was based almost entirely on utterly biased hate-pieces from the Daily Mail.
It’s masses of work. Please stop moaning and come and help!
Póló, yes, I, too, send thanks go to Jon, for enabling time-stamps and permalinks.
Well said, Clark.
Karel 20 Oct, 8:50 pm: so, basically, what you’re saying is, you disagree with Komodo on matters concerning 9/11, and therefore Komodo is a sleeper.
And I can argue back that you are paid by some secret establishment cabal to come onto this site and attempt to discredit one of the best researchers that the comment section of this blog has.
We can’t verify either proposition, can we? So maybe we shouldn’t bother posting such unverifiable speculations in the first place. I’ll make a deal with you. I won’t post such stuff if you don’t. OK?
And 9/11 stuff doesn’t belong here. Any more, and I’ll delete it.
Nuid & Tecnicolour, I just noticed page two of the Silent Circle article:
That’s good news then, and that’ll be why Silent Circle is making the establishment nervous. And cautions still apply, of course, about ‘phone hardware that requires proprietary software that is only available as closed-source, non-Free software,
This looks a bit propagandist:
There’s nothing necessarily “noncommercial” about Free(dom), open source licenses. You are free to sell Free software. It doesn’t have to be gratis. There’s noting in the GNU GPL license, for instance, that says you can’t charge money for software licensed under it.
Clark, I was not the one who brought the nauseating topic of 9/11 to the discussion. It was your valuable lizard who raised it up and I have just tried to make a fun of him. I realize that satire is not greatly appreciated here to deal with such holy cows and will refrain from it if you apply the same rules to others.
From the frequency of my contributions to this blog you may have guessed that I am not a sleeper. I cannot naturally prove to you that I am not a payed member of some kind of cabal or another but it should be obvious to everybody that my four or five comments in the last six months would not make me terribly rich. Otherwise I appreciate your difficult work and wish you good luck in the future.
Karel, I think that it was lwtc247 who raised the subject on this thread.
Beware trying to express satire on the threads. You may well be typing text in shades of pink, green and blue, but it all comes out as black and white at the far end.
The business end of The 9/11 Post is here:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-10/#comment-373371
“Beware trying to express satire on the threads. You may well be typing text in shades of pink, green and blue, but it all comes out as black and white at the far end.”
OK, we’re friends, and all but……I’m stealin’ that. :>)
I have been in my own very small way a whistleblower on two occasions – and nearly on a third. Nothing earth shattering, just calling out my ‘superiors’ on their incompetence or dereliction of duty. I suffered some minor repercussions but don’t regret it.
I’m not sure how I’d behave if I had something significant to lose or if my life/liberty could be put at risk.
The world needs whistleblowers. The world needs wikileaks. It would be ideal if there were a whistleblowers charter that allowed whistleblowers to sue the companies/organisations they worked in should they suffer any loss or trauma from the disclosures they make. Given that many who blow the whistle can never work again, they need to be compensated accordingly. It might lead to some spurious claims but the courts can deal with such on a case by case basis. Far less harm would be done than is done by the culture of silence and fear that pervades most organisations.
But I know it won’t happen any time soon.
More on whistleblowing, and why it is so difficult to those involved:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-guide-to-the-9-11-whistleblowers/17961
(Clark/Mods – please don’t relegate this to the other thread – it’s directly on point.)
Ben Franklin, sorry, my input is unstealable (unless you try to restrict it in some way). I consider all of my stuff Copyleft:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
Your right to copy and distribute my work is protected by law.
Glenn, yes, that’s on-topic and can stay. Over on the 9/11 thread, they’re arguing about nanothermite, demolition, etc. etc., but your link is about whistleblowing.
I’ve re-posted it to the 9/11 Post, too.
I wonder if it would have been more worthwhile, albeit very risky, for Craig to have stayed within the system, as sickening as it is/was, to become a serial leaker. You don’t just lose your job as a public whistleblower but also the opportunity to expose the truth on other matters of public interest. With an organisation like wikileaks, or a more functional and reliable version thereof, secret whistleblowers could have the best of both worlds.
Thanks for the supportive remarks, Suhaly Saadi.
It seems likely that Ivens was shot, apparently by drug runner Joshua James Burchell, as when his body was finally found, little more than a mere skeleton, there seems to have been a bullet hole in his head, and the alleged suicide weapon beside it.
Seems that Ivens thought he was meeting up with former FBI inspector Donald Sachtleben when he left home on the 11th, thinking Sachtleben could help shed light on his set up, but actually the Bureau had Burchell, it seems,there to do the job, and hide the body until it was safe to find it, some 85 days later.
While Ivens was being murdered, the Bureau and the Diplomatic Service set up a meeting of someone feigning to be Ivens with the Russian consul in the downtown LA hotel, having him talk about the plot that he and Sachtleben were investigating, possibly even the one the real Ivens was concerned about, and then being chased off to the hills by three Diplomatic Service agents who were following the San Francisco Russian official, Vladimir Vinokurov.
The Bureau then conveniently arrested Sachtleben for possessing child pornography after he made his way back to Indianopolis – what will secure his silence about anything regarding Ivens if he ever wants to be out of prison.
After Ivens’ body was found, and a LA coroner ruled the killing a suicide, a Joint Anti-Terrorist squad killed Burchell in Las Vegas in a stakeout when he went to get into his car in a parking lot.
Of course, the official terrorists claimed that they killed Burchell in self-defense when he went for his weapon, but the Clark County Coroner wouldn’t buy it, claiming that it was a homocide which FBI agent Patrick Turner had apparently committed.
Interesting to see how it plays out, especially if it occurs before election day.
Hope to have a surprise article about it for Obama before the polls open, especially all the bad stuff about the Bureau which seems to be what got director Tony Scott, who made all those glowing films about America’s officialdom, especially the FBI, to pull the plug on himself after the full extent of the Ivens saga became clear.
Poor Ivens is another alleged LHO, only this time the Bureau got the culprit before he could get the President!
On 20th October the S/V Estelle was attacked and taken by the Israeli navy and the Ship to Gaza website attacked. This is a summary of what the Occupier was doing in Palestine on 18th October. There are no reports yet for the 19th and 20th October.
Zionism in practice – Israel’s Daily Toll on Palestinian Life, Limb, Liberty and Property
24 hours to 8am 18 October 2012
3 air strikes – 1 attack – 12 raids including home invasions – 1 beaten – 1 injured – 6 acts of agricultural/economic sabotage – 10 taken prisoner – 8 detained – 99 restrictions of movement
3 Israeli air strikes hit Gaza farmland
Rafah farmland under Israeli fire from behind the Green Line
Settler petrol bomb assault: refugee camp’s olive trees set on fire – homes under attack
Villager hospitalised in Occupation settler raid on Palestinian farmland
Night peace disruption and/or home invasions in refugee camp and 6 towns and villages
[Source of statistics: Palestinian Monitoring Group]
Air strikes: 3
Gaza – evening, Israeli combat jets made three consecutive air strikes on al-Zaytoun farmland.
Attacks:
Rafah – evening, Israeli Army positions behind the Green Line opened fire on farmland.
Home invasions and occupation:
Bethlehem –
19:10, the Israeli Army raided Beit Jala, invaded a home and left orders for a person to report to Israeli Military Intelligence.
Hebron – 01:10 , Israeli troops raided Dura, searched several homes and took three people prisoner.
Occupation settler violence:
Ramallah – 00:45 , a gang of Israeli settlers raided the al-Jalazoun refugee camp, throwing petrol bombs at homes and setting fire to olive trees.
Nablus –
• 09:00, an Iraq Burin farm worker, Diyab Qaddus, was admitted to hospital following a beating by Israeli settler militants during a raid on village farmland.
• Zionist militants invaded agricultural land in Deir Istiya.
Palestinian attacks:
Northern Gaza – evening, 1 missile fired towards the Green Line.
Khan Yunis – afternoon, 1 missile fired towards the Green Line.
Raids: 12 including home invasions
Tubas – 21:00 , Israeli troops raided and left house demolition orders along with orders for a resident to remove himself within three days.
Tulkarem –
• 02:00 , the Israeli Army raided Bal’a and Anabta.
• 02:35 , Occupation troops raided the city.
Nablus –
• 19:25, the Israeli Army raided Beit Ibba.
• 19:30, Israeli forces raided Beit Wazan.
Bethlehem –
• 11:10, the Israeli Army raided Beit Jala.
• 13:35, Occupation forces raided Marah Rabah and left orders for a person to report to Israeli Military Intelligence. Hebron – 01:30 , the Israeli Army raided Sair.
Times indicated in Bold Type contribute to the sleep deprivation suffered by Palestinian children.
Restrictions of movement: 99
The Israeli Occupation’s military restrictions on Palestinian freedom covered by this category include:
• Checkpoints at the entrances to towns and villages to prevent people entering or leaving.
• Interference with people attempting to move around towns and villages.
• Cement blocks and barbed wire on roads.
• Rubble on roads.
• Farmers prohibited from going onto their land to work it.
• Road closures to isolate areas in which the Israeli Army considers the presence of Palestinians to be ‘illegal’.
• Yasser Arafat International Airport is permanently closed and Palestinians needing to enter or leave Palestine can do so only with Israeli permission.
• Interference with access to mosques and freedom of worship.
• Wall Gates. The gates in Israel’s annexation Wall, which restrict Palestinian access to their land on both sides.
• Curfews. Anyone appearing in the street or at a window is liable to be shot dead.
• Israel enforces many of the above restrictions with the threat, or actual use, of military action as well as personal physical assault. Thus, Palestinians are faced with an all-pervasive and constant state of Israeli violence towards them.
Violations:
Hebron – Israeli Occupation forces continue to enforce a military order prohibiting Palestinian vehicles from using Shalala Old Street and allowing only Israeli civilian and military vehicles on the road.
http://www.sapienspromise.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2572
Rather poor sound quality on this You Tube.
Israeli navy seizes Gaza-bound ship with Canadian aboard – CTV news
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jcJINj3pb0Y#!
Isn’t the Estelle a beautiful ship in full sail!
What a stench. Currie puts Savile into Broadmoor. He proceeds to put in one of his friends.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/9623089/Jimmy-Savile-Questions-for-Edwina-Currie-and-the-BBC.html
She now, just like Rantzen, thinks differently.
‘Mrs Currie, who had previously met Savile on his television programme Jim’ll Fix it and on visits to Leeds General Infirmary, where he also worked, said she now thought the presenter was “totally evil” and that she was glad criminal investigations were underway.’
Marr has Greg Dyke and that other dreadful woman Rantzen on his programme. Some revising about to come out of her mouth perhaps?
re Estelle, shiptogaza:
nothing shows up the monolithic nature of the global MSM more than the uniform headlines, across the alleged left/right MSM, with not one headline including the words “in International waters”.
Sorry Mary.
To be fair the Palestinians should now look at their options, regarding Re-settlement.
Let Israel have the Gaza strip, and move on.
This stalemate is detrimental to the Palestinians.
What options are available to the Palestinians?
I can understand that Israel needs to defend itself. How do you think we can move forward.
Israel is going to expand its terrirories the Palestians should be allowed to look at their options.
I am affraid it is the strong and powerful order and we have to live with that.
By ignoring the issues we are ignoring the problem. But we do need to move on some how for the sake of those that are in need.
We do NOT have to allow the bully to win. Where is the law?
‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’
Rantzen said that there was never any evidence produced until after Savile’s death. Greg Dyke believes that the Newsnight piece was pulled by the programme editor for the reason that whatever evidence there was, it was not strong enough. No cover up took place at the BBC. ‘The BBC doesn’t work like that.’
So a good defence of the BBC all round.
Strange that ITV managed to produce their exposé.