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.
Rantzen lied. It is vile, how people in position of authority and influence say there is “no evidence” when someone comes and says they’ve been sexually assaulted, as if that person’s testimony isn’t evidence. And this is someone who’s a big figure in ‘Childline’. Her hypocrisy is staggering.
Savile was involved with regional synagogue organisations in Leeds and Manchester. Rantzen is also involved in the said scene in the former city.
Certain figures must be running around trying to ringfence this. I wonder whether the stuff about the ‘fourth and fifth celebrities’ is part of the ringfencing.
@Jay – you ask how we might move forward. I could ask you what language you think the nuclear-armed Zionazis (*) might understand. But in answer to your question…
The Zionist entity must be disarmed, delegitimised, and abolished; and their agents of various different kinds must be stopped from working for them, by means of the criminalisation of their activities – and, in the many cases in which their activities are already criminal, what is needed is the stricter enforcement of the law (e.g. laws against keeping secret weapons, terrorism, bribery, espionage, etc.) (But oh no – what do we get instead? We get the British ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, being proud to attend the opening of the Leeds Hasbara Centre.)
The opponents of the Zionists in Palestine must be given whatever support they need, to help them move towards complete victory. Is that clear enough?
(*) Israel is an ethnosupremacist regime which keeps many concentration camps, including in the Gaza strip; I am not inclined to hear any opposition to usage of the term ‘Zionazi’ – and of course such an entity should not have the ‘right to defend itself’, which is a propaganda term designed to obscure what that entity actually is.
@Clark – your response to what I said about Wikipedia, to the effect that people like me should “Go and get involved, or you’ve no valid complaint”, is completely ridiculous. Will you acknowledge what assumptions you are making? Should we all get involved in Coca-Cola’s focus groups too, or keep quiet about them?
Your response is basically a non-response and shows you don’t get what I was saying about Wikipedia, and you don’t get Wikipedia either, being confined within it and assuming it’s good because…well…because why?…because anyone with an internet connection can contribute? YAWN.
As for Jimmy Wales and Ayn Rand, you could EASILY have found out for yourself in the time it took you to post a call for “evidence”. Click here.
A tweet
“Israeli #Estelle passengers are charged with violating Disengagement Law, incitement, incitement to rebellion and aiding the enemy.”
(no source given)
Clark, I am somewhat puzzled by your recommendation “Beware trying to express satire on the threads.” Is it a veiled threat rather than a well-meant advice? Are you going to send a death squad soon or what? Is this also meant to be an advice to any potential whistleblower? Cannot we have a occasional laugh or would you prefer to be bored to death? I apologize for bringing up these suggestive questions but you should think more carefully about what you write. I have heard similar recommendations containing the weasel word “beware” before and no longer respond to this allergen with docility.
@Clark
No need to apologise to me mate. You certainly didn’t upset me. I only have time to read/comment on the bus at the moment so my points are even more poorly made than usual. I know little of Zappa but that he sang a right on song is not relevant to my point that all idolisation diminishes us. Got to go, it’s my stop.
On rules and Ireland….
Ireland is the only country I’ve been to where at airport check-ins, if the luggage scales are showing a positive weight before you put your bags on, and you draw this to the clerk’s attention, she will turn the display off, tell you to put your bag on, turn the display on again, register the weight, and then turn the display off, and tell you to take your bag off.
It’s also the only country in which, in many small towns, I’ve noticed that a local big guy will advertise his political services (either in an election or in relation to a representative post he already occupies) in the same shopfront as he advertises his private-sector business (which is almost always related to construction, and behind that, to money-lending, and is very often estate agency).
And it’s the only country I’ve been to where, exiting on a car ferry, and having bought my ticket and paid in full, I’ve been told at the security gate, on my way out of the country, that “there’s an outstanding balance on the account, and you’ll have to pay it before we can let you board”. (Having shown my receipt, I refused to pay the extra amount demanded, and got out of my car and walked back to the terminal, where the staff were all smiles and knew exactly what I was going to say to them before I reached the desk.) That said, an awful lots of scams are run on internal UK ferries to and from the Scottish islands, but I haven’t encountered the above-mentioned type. Ireland’s obviously not the only corrupt country in the world – the UK is just as corrupt – but there is a level of blatantness which can be quite striking.
Jay 21 Oct,- 9:36 am: I agree with Mary. We shouldn’t just abandon international law because Israel repeatedly breaks it. Israel is in breach of so many, many international laws and UN resolutions. The solution is the strengthening of international law, not it’s abandonment.
Compare with current situation regarding Israel to what happened with Apartheid in South Africa. Eventually the situation was forced to change, by the power of public pressure, the commercial pressure of international customer boycotts.
People on the Estelle were tasered, according to some – but curiously I’ve only read this in the Zionist press. Click.
N_, I look forward to your story of how you’ve been censored at Wikipedia. Show us the links in Wikipedia’s history pages that show your submission of material, and its removal from the current article.
Or are you saying that “they” remove the history, too? OK, demonstrate the effect. Show us something that you can back up with a reliable source. Show us the Wikipedia page you’re going to add that sourced material to. Go and add it, and then we can all watch the disappearance in action.
You do know how Wikipedia and its history pages work, don’t you? Every edit to every article is recorded in that article’s “History” page. The link to the history is a tab at the top of the article.
I did go and look up Jimmy Wales, and the influence of Ayn Rand upon him. I think it actually works against your argument. Wales describes his outlook as “libertarian” (but he specifically describes the US Libertarian political party as “lunatics”). His libertarian belief is that the only valid source of knowledge is reason and evidence; any attempt to impose belief is wrong, whether it’s one individual imposing it upon another, or a government imposing it en masse.
Here’s a transcript of an interview:
http://www.q-and-a.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1042
Karel, 21 Oct, 10:49 am: maybe I should have said “avoid satire in comments that have any connection to 9/11, where truth and fiction have become so utterly shredded, by both the establishment and its opposition, that without tone of voice and body language to inform us, it’s difficult to tell when someone is joking”.
guano
20 Oct, 2012 – 11:47 pm
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.
@Guano defacing the statues of Bamiyan and the 8000 year old carving, created at the hight of the Egyptian dynasties, but in the Atlas mountains, is the work of people who have lost their heritage who have no comprehension of their own self.
Why compare horses with coffee? Saville might have been a satanist, who knows, but those who covered his behaviour for fear of being cast out of the great BBC/establishment clique, are just as guilty for their petty self interest.
As for the Salafist who set themselves above the culture and heritage of their forefathers, and, blinded by the darkness of their own confusion, destroy the records of their own existence, may they get what they deserve. I hope the tools they’ve used to erase their past, come to life in a macabre, unreal manifestation and turn on them.
True Clark and N_. I had not heard that about tazers Nuid but it would not surprise me. There were a large number of passengers on board. If you read the touchy-feely-cuddly IDF site, it was just a routine operation.
http://www.idfblog.com/2012/10/20/israel-navy-soldiers-board-estelle-currently-leading-it-to-ashdod-port/
btw IDF. It is not a ‘maritime security blockade’ of Gaza. It is a siege. The port was bombed by the Israelis during the second intifada and so was the airport in 2001, as have been their power, sewage and water facilities over the years.
In reply to Anna in the comments, who said in Hebrew ‘love thy neighbour’, she was called a ‘cochina’ – a dirty girl. A girl who sleeps around, who doesn’t take care of herself, thinks or says something raunchy – according to Urban Dictionary,
My experience of Ireland on a recent visit was entirely difference to that of David Peters. The only rip off was on the car hire and that was a branch of a Yankee owned outfit. My father, although English, was born in Limerick. His father was a refrigeration engineer and installed the system at the Mattesons on the side of the mighty River Shannon, named after Sionna, a Celtic goddess. (Good old Wikipedia for the latter!)
I cannot see how these plans will ever be achieved. There are no construction materials and none are allowed in. Israel would block it anyway.
Palestinians set to build a port in Gaza
Wednesday, 28 December 2011 | 12:54
The Palestinian Authority has planned the construction of an international airport near Jerusalem and a port in the Gaza Strip, ArabNews reports quoting Palestinian Minister of Transport Sa’di Al-Krunz.
The port will be built on the shores of Sheikh Ijleen in the southern Gaza Strip. Al-Krunz said that France and the Netherlands had agreed to finance the project.
Al-Krunz said that the airport would be built in the Al-Bqai’a area between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Bethlehem. The airport project worth $340m had received the go-ahead from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
Tens of donor countries pledged more than $4.4 billion to rebuild the war-torn territory in a conference held in Sharm El-Sheikh in March 2009. But nothing happened on the ground until now because of intra-Palestinian strife as well as the Israeli siege of the coastal strip.
The Palestinian Ministry of National Economy said in September that the PA had lost up to $1.9 billion in lost revenue due to the siege of the Gaza Strip
http://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/News.aspx?ElementId=b76476ac-79e5-4c57-b37c-2d6cb400caa7
Karel, or maybe I should have said that my trained squad of killer mice armed with miniaturised plasma-cannons stands awaiting my command night and day, and should I fail to appreciate any more of your jokes, I promise to release them against myself forthwith.
I worked for 20 years in administration positions in the NHS. About 6 years ago I tried to expose a Leeds hospital engaged in illegal practices involving heart and liver transplants contrary to the Transplant Act.
I contacted the NHS Counter Fraud Service (which I believed would be in confidence) and explained what I had uncovered. Soon afterwards my managers were aware of my contact with the fraud service and I was interrogated by them a few times.
I was put under pressure at work; I got no support from colleagues and I was routinely given repetitive, monotonous work to do.
At one point the management tried to have me sacked for having a pint at lunchtime but the union helped me there.
However the pressure continued. To cut a long story short, I took early retirement and moved to London.
Since leaving Leeds I have tried to return to NHS administration at London hospitals and after 350+ unsuccessful applications I gave up trying.
Trowbridge H. Ford, 21 Oct, 8:30 am, thanks for your interesting comment. Please, when you post something like this, attribute, and preferably link to your sources.
I know that the software at this site will queue your comment for “moderation” if you include more than one link. (It isn’t really moderation, it’s just a hassle; the site team just release such comments from the queue as soon as we find them.) Please post links anyway. If you’re really keen that your comment appears instantly, post the text of your comment first, and put all your links in a separate comment, which will be displayed when we find it. Or post a series of shorter comments, each containing only one link. Or remove the http prefix and enclose the link in {curly brackets}.
Clark, I appreciate your efforts to amuse us all with your “killer mice” (I thought you were more familiar with lizards) rather than answering any of the questions, I raised. Are you trying to interrupt the game by a deliberate offside? Why do you bring in the 9/11 again? I think that only those who believe that WTC7 collapsed out of sympathy with the taller twins have problems of telling what is fiction and what is not. Not everybody who is sceptical about the content of wikipedia, believes in antigravity, ETs, Ickeian lizards and other “tangible assets”, as you are trying to allude. There was a time when some “maladjusted individuals” in the Soviet Union ended up in mental asylums because they doubted that the best political system of all times is going to last for ever. Do you want to bring this practice back?
@Clark – “N_, I look forward to your story of how you’ve been censored at Wikipedia. Show us the links in Wikipedia’s history pages that show your submission of material, and its removal from the current article.
I haven’t got any such story.
Wikipedia is a private website. Censorship means a publication ban. I can say stuff on my own website if I like; Wikipedia doesn’t stop me. There are things some people might want to publish in the UK which the state would stop them from publishing. That’s censorship. Having your stuff taken down from someone else’s private website isn’t censorship. I’m not some adolescent throwing the word ‘censorship’ around without knowing what it means. I haven’t even used it.
Your curious way of arguing (saying you look forward to hearing some story I haven’t got) illustrates that Wikipedia (which is an organisation – I’m not sure you grasp this) probably acts a bit like a tar baby on many of those who get squelched for being off-message. I.e. they keep trying to criticise it in its own terms, banging their heads against it until they get burned out, maybe listing all the details at great length. Not me.
Jimmy Wales is a follower of the vile right-wing nutcase Ayn Rand. I am not going to argue in favour of that statement, because it is very easily verifiable by anyone with an internet connection in about 5 minutes. (Maybe except if they didn’t know it and find it hard to accept, and are motivated to lie to themselves about it even when it stares them in the face.)
I would imagine that the only reason Wales criticises the US Libertarian Party is that they’ve been less successful than he has, which he probably thinks is because they’re too ideological and not as smart, too ‘theoretical’ Randscum and not ‘successful practical smart’ Randscum like himself. Not as rich, and not as ‘productive’, in nutspeak.
“My experience of Ireland on a recent visit was entirely difference to that of David Peters.”
Glad to hear that, Mary. And how interesting that your father was born in Limerick. I believe there are ~40 million Americans of Irish descent (or more accurately, of part-Irish descent) but I have no idea what the figures are for Britain.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the UK, and more recently, since my health deteriorated, I go *only* to Britain on holiday. I travel by car ferry all the time (booking online) and have never had an experience like David’s. So I don’t know what’s up there … But corrupt politicians are no surprise at all. Anywhere and everywhere. Billy Connolly got it right, methinks, “anyone who wants to be a politician should be banned for life from being one”.
Which probably takes us back, yet again, to Vronsky’s solution.
Thanks for the advice, Clark.
I shall try to follow it in future, but it will be difficult because what I write about has almost no serious, in-depth research.
Just take this piece which deals with all the catch-up the Bureau and the LA police resorted to, given their massive failure in discovering the dots and making the necesssary connections about the 9/11 suicide bombings, why Ivens moved to Burbank after he had been hired by the LAPD to meet the growning terrorism threats, police corruption there which centered around the Bob Hope Airport in its modernizing efforts and purchaing business, the problems that the Russian plane-maker Sukhoi had in breaking into the West’s civilian aviation business, the evidence that its demonstrator which had Peter Adler on it to help arrange purchases by South Asian and American carriers was sabotaged, how FBI officialdom learned of Ivens’ growing concern and likely whistle-blowing, etc. – what would require a great number of citations which would make it almost impossible to post, given what you want.
Perhaps, in future, I should just post the piece on some link which supports my efforts, and then link it here.
Version 3 of the BBC report has popped up. A little Netanyahu propaganda (thereby getting Syria into the frame) and a new sub heading introduced – protect our borders. Plus the details of the cargo and a change in the number of passengers. Nothing from those arrested of course just a quote from Sweden and Hamas.
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/567730/diff/2/3
This report quotes Yonatan Shapira, an Israeli on board:
english.al-akhbar.com/content/israel-tasered-gaza-flotilla-acitivists-witness
“My father, although English, was born in Limerick.”
Sorry, mis-read you there, Mary. Mea culpa.
Estelle Ship to Gaza | Italian national (Jewish) Marco Ramazzotti Stockel aboard Estelle expelled from Israel
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/estelle-ship-to-gaza-italian-national-jewish-marco-ramazzotti-stockel-aboard-estelle-expelled-from-israel/
(includes video of earlier interview with Marco Ramazzotti Stockel)
There is no way that the controling order are going relinquish power without a fight.
if the Palestinians packed up and shipped out would that not draw more attentiin to there plight.
Bush and Blair are wanted for warcrimes and cannot freely travel the Globe.
I am so sad about the whole system. The mentality of the controling order is only that of themselves.
On here we bang on about nationlism and racism what about the Palistinian national and the palistinian people.
Common sense is appropiate, when applied properly can benefit all.
Let the Israel have there land and advance their control.
What the rest of us need to do is, see through the lies and bring into subjudication what matters to the rest of humanity.
We don’t know what Saville was up to, he may of been just touching up teenage girls.
His acts although perverse and unwanted will probably now be beneficial most to the Rmy of lawyers and colummists who wil revel in the oppurtunity of spinning out the stories.
You know what, with the correct use of manpower there could be some real in roads in defeating exploitation of minors.
But today we do not apply our ability to correct these injustices and instead concern ourselves with other trivial matters.
My favorite contemporary politico, George McGovern, dead
RIP , Gonzo Candidate.
Agree with you regarding whistleblowing. I had my life made hell for four years for doing that. Screwed up my life and marriage.
“: maybe I should have said “avoid satire in comments that have any connection to 9/11,”
You were right the first time, Clark. Snarkasm is subtle and easily misinterpreted. Both parties must be familiar with one another, and even then, misunderstandings occur.
I’m stayin’ with your original non-copyrightable gem…:>)