I was trying to come up with a witty and apposite acronym for BBC to describe what I have just seen on TV, but all I could manage was Beyond Belief Cunts.
Watching BBC World News here in Accra, I have just seen forty minutes of intense and non-stop Israeli propaganda. A live press conference by Netanyahu and Ehud Barak followed by a long, long interview with Mark Regev in which the most searching BBC question could fairly be paraphrased as “How can you be certain that those dastardly Palestinians will not break the ceasefire and start firing rockets again?”
No attempt whatsoever to give a Palestinian a chance to put over their viewpoint. Now fifty minutes of solid coverage around the ceasefire without a single Palestinian view or pro-Palestinian or pro-peace view. And in that entire fifty minutes not one mention of Palestinian dead.
Beyond Belief Cunts. Actually, it’s not a bad effort.
@ Ben,
“Parry, thrust, retreat……that’s the pattern. It’s easier to ask for forgiveness, than permission to attack. Otherwise, the attention is lacking.”
Interesting,indeed,but what does it actually mean or refer to?
Cheers.
There is a thread to this (big hint) but I regret I cannot reply, directly.
Lindi –
what is amazing is how many times u see comments online pushing the line that bbc is anti-israel. as craig says, it makes u want to vomit.
having just learned australia will abstain at the UN on the Palestinian vote (whilst spinning it that this means Australia is not backing Israel) and then reading US is in secret talks with Israel to water down the Palestinian text, so that it is meaningless, as the UK is also doing, i thought this says a lot about what we are dealing with:
Police order Palestinian workers off buses to West Bank, at request of Israeli settlers
Police have begun ordering Palestinian laborers with legal work permits off buses from the Tel Aviv area to the West Bank, following complaints from settlers that Palestinians pose a security risk by riding the same buses as them…
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/police-order-palestinian-workers-off-buses-to-west-bank-at-request-of-israeli-settlers.premium-1.480741
BBC = Buggering Britain’s Children
ZBC = Zionist Bullshit Corporation
btw here’s a classic example of overt ZBC propaganda as spewed by on of the corporations most compliant snivelling wankers ( yes even worse than Frank ‘SIS’ Gardner ), Andrew Marr
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_JC371jxPI
While Craig and most of you rant at the Beeb from the Left, Melanie Phillips and the Telegraph do the same from the Right. I’d say if the Beeb are irritating both Craig and Mad Mel, then they’re getting the balance about right.
Alan Cambell.
I think your forgetting something.
Breaking News. Twitter has closed the Swedish Anonymous account. Anonymous is calling for a big campaign against Twitter’s CEO.
http://www.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.expressen.se
While Craig and most of you rant at the Beeb from the Left, Melanie Phillips and the Telegraph do the same from the Right. I’d say if the Beeb are irritating both Craig and Mad Mel, then they’re getting the balance about right.
That’s a superficially attractive argument, occasionally deployed by the BBC itself. But (as several posters here demonstrate) what people say about the BBC is one thing, and the actual observable bias is another.
The basic assumption by the BBC is that Palestinians are terrorists, and Israel is a legitimate state legitimately deploying a minimum of reasonable force to maintain its security. This is the Israeli narrative.
Events have shown over many years that this is not a truthful narrative: the state employs terror tactics, indefinite detention without trial and reprisals against a civilian population. Its refusal to halt settlement building on land which is not legally its own indicates that ethnic cleansing is its objective. Little of which can be deduced from the BBC’s coverage – or anyone else’s, with the honourable exception of a few individual journalists.
On the other side of the argument, Israel’s vocal (and very influential – list below) supporters, object to any mention of Israel as a less-than-perfect democracy. Mentioning the word “Jewish” in any context other than one of undiluted praise attracts accusations of antisemitism. Press coverage of Israel/Palestine is scrutinised through a microscope, and co-ordinated complaints are instantly submitted to editors should a less than glowing reference to Israel appear in the MSM. These include the rare appearances of Hamas or, more rarely still, Hizb’ullah spokesmen. While demonstrably untrue statements by Mark Regev are given as much air time as he requires, and the Chief Rabbi can address the Radio 4 audience during the conflict. Note: this is still a nominally Christian country.
The Chief Rabbi also contributed to this:
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/91169/unanimous-uk-jewish-communal-organisations-support-israel-over-gaza-fighting
As did these, many of whom are major donors to the Labour and Conservative Parties.:
Mick Davis – Chair of the Board of Trustees, The Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) & Chairman, UJIA
Vivian Wineman – President, Board of Deputies of British Jews & Chairman, JLC
Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks – Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth
Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner – Movement Rabbi, Movement for Reform Judaism
Rabbi Danny Rich – CEO, Liberal Judaism also on behalf of Liberal Judaism Rabbinic Conference
Jon Benjamin – CEO, The Board of Deputies of British Jews
Jeremy Newmark – Chief Executive, The Jewish Leadership Council
Frank Baigel – President of Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester & Region
Kate Bearman – JLC Political Oversight Group & Former Director of Labour Friends of Israel
Bill Benjamin – Member, JLC
Linda Boxer – Chief Executive, WIZO UK
Alex Brummer – Vice-President of Board of Deputies (Chair International Division)
Paul Charney – Chair, Zionist Federation
David Chinn – Member, JLC Political Oversight Group
Sir Trevor Chinn CVO – Vice President, JLC & Chair of JLC Political Oversight Group
Adrian Cohen – Chair, London Jewish Forum & Member of JLC
David Cohen – Vice President, JLC
David Dangoor – President, Board of the Spanish & Portuguese Jews’ Congregation
Alan Finley – President, Federation of Synagogues
Lord Stanley Fink – Vice-President, JLC
Judith Flacks – Campaigns Director, UJS
Nick Gendler – Co-chair, Masorti Judaism
Jonathan Goldstein – Chair, PaJeS
Lord Young of Graffam – Chairman, Jewish Museum & Member, JLC
Alex Green – Chair, Union of Jewish Students and Member, JLC
Henry Grunwald OBE QC – Vice President, JLC & Past President, Board of Deputies
Robert Halfon MP
Andrew Heller – Chairman, Executive Board of Conservative Friends of Israel
Lucian J Hudson – Chairman, Liberal Judaism
Jeremy Jacobs – CEO, United Synagogue
Lord Janner of Braunstone – Vice-President, JLC
Isaac Kaye – BICOM & JLC Political Oversight Group
Dermot Kehoe – CEO, BICOM
Brian Kerner – Co-chair, Fair Play Campaign Group & Member of JLC
Dr Eli Kienwald – CEO, Federation of Synagogues
Debbie Klein – Chairman, JCC for London
Douglas Krikler – Political Oversight Group, JLC
Nigel Layton – Chairman, LEAD
Howard Leigh – Vice President, JLC
James Libson – Trustee, JLC
Howard Miller – CEO, Spanish & Portuguese Jews’ Congregation
Edward Misrahi – Vice Chair, BICOM & Chairman, ‘We Believe in Israel’
Leo Noé – Vice President, JLC
Stephen Pack – President, United Synagogue
Jenny Pizer – Chair, Movement for Reform Judaism
Stuart Polak – Director, Conservative Friends of Israel
Ben Rich – CEO, Movement for Reform Judaism
Jo Rosenfelder – Board Member & Trustee, Tzedek & Member of JLC Political Oversight Group
Jill Shaw – Chair, WIZO UK
Clive Sheldon – Co-chair, Masorti Judaism
Rebecca Simon – Board Member, Labour Friends of Israel
Gavin Stollar – Chairman, Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel
Nick Viner – CEO, JCC for London
Michael Weiger – Chief Executive, UJIA
Joy Wolfe MBE – Chairman, StandWithUs UK & President, Manchester Zionist Central Council
Poju Zabludowicz – Chairman, BICOM
Do the Palestinians have this much clout?
Is Mr Costolo just following orders on the Twitter account of Sweden’s Anonymous?
‘In May 2011, it was announced that President Obama had appointed Dick Costolo to the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, along with the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group, Scott Charney, and McAfee President of Security David DeWalt.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Costolo
Very interesting article by Eric Walberg, exploring some of the complexities emerging in the anti-Zionist/pro-Palestinian movement, moving beyond the black/white dichotomy of the early phase.
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=428:critiquing-israel-colonialism-or-jewish-culture&catid=42:peace-and-socialism&Itemid=95
In a similar vein, he looks at what’s going on with Morsi in Egypt.
http://ericwalberg.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=458:egypts-morsi-biting-the-bullet&catid=40:middle-east&Itemid=93
Excellent stuff, and deffo must reads for anyone who’s interested in the nuances and subtleties of radical movements and their evolution.
Meanwhile, over at The Staggers, poor Laurie Penny is getting quite a roasting from serious grown-up feminists. The moderators have been busy deleting comments and obviously it all became too much for them so they closed them down. Let’s hope that this is a lesson to Laurie and she takes some time off for guidance and reflection.
http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2012/11/facebook-and-google-know-we-value-conformity-more-our-privacy
New Bank of England Governor Mark Carney’s wife: an eco-warrior who says banks are rotten
The British wife of the new Bank of England Governor is a strident environmental activist who urges people to spend less money on possessions, and once declared: “Having more stuff does not make us happy”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/9704385/New-Bank-of-England-Governor-Mark-Carneys-wife-an-eco-warrior-who-says-banks-are-rotten.html
??
Further to the above – we might note with approval that when The Moral Maze discussed the Gaza bombardment last week, regular panellist, Israeli shill and bore Mel Phillips was not invited to participate. Evidently even the BBC recognises that there are limits. If distant ones:
http://www.occri.org.uk/Articles/BBCMoralMaze.htm
(old piece, but no less true)
First of all, Guano, As someone who has worked in H&S for 14.000 people at one time, I concur with what Komodo has advised, if blue asbestos came down on you and you had no air-fed mask or any mask on your face, GET THIS ACCIDENT REPORT AND ENSURE THAT YOU HAVE A RECORD OF THE INCIDENT.
Further I would suggest that you contact a specialist doctor, on behalf of your employer, and see whether there are any procedures that can be undertaken before the spikes of blue asbestos have buried themselves into your lung tissue.
If your employer was not aware of the asbestos, then that is bed, in any retor fitting you should have a good look at what is there and what you have to interfere with. If he knew and still went ahead, he is negligible for sure.
Now to this message I gleaned from a Twitter notification for someone else, from Max Kaiser
“Job listing for MI6 ‘elimination specialist’ appears on government website
A listing for an applicant with prior experience of sniper rifles and suited to those “who like their martinis shaken and not stirred” has appeared on a government job site.
telegraph.co.uk · Tweet this story
Tweeted by
Max Keiser”
Finally a job has come up…. but will they take grand dads?…:)
To the person who said Scotland should have the same status as Jersey, on another thread here. OK, that’s what you want, but please know what it means.
It would mean leaving the UK, but retaining the rump-UK (without any requirement of input from Scotland) responsible for foreign relations (including issuing passports), defence, and, in extremis (as judged from London) internal ‘good government’ (sic). Sound good?
I doubt that’s what anyone wants.
In any case, it isn’t going to happen.
But if it did, or if the referendum went in favour of (non-)’independence’ on some related model, it would be a recipe for the SNP continuing to ram ‘Scotland’ down people’s throats in Scotland, including wrapped in obscure legal arguments around things like letters of entrustment – which would be great for the ‘Scotsman’ newspaper and of course bigwig Edinburgh lawyers and Bannockburn-heads.
Most people in Scotland have already had enough, which is why the referendum will go against (non-)’independence’. Then the SNP will try to ram similar rubbish down people’s throats, but they’ll do so as a minority one-issue party.
Many people in Scotland already stick their fingers in their ears when they hear the SNP go on about ‘Scotland’.
Circumstances where a majority of people in England are in favour of Scottish ‘independence’ and a majority of people in Scotland are against it, are really quite sad.
Generally speaking, English and Scottish people used to get on fine with each other. Bit of joshing, maybe, but usually not getting anywhere near anything nasty, and never getting anywhere near the sort of hatred that was routinely expressed even while Yugoslavia still existed with its 6 constitutent republics, between say Albanians and Serbs. Now, as living standards plummet on both sides of the Tweed, the dirty nationalists are coming out of the woodwork, encouraging thuggish punch-ups with poxy ignorant pseudo-educated justification.
If you’ve ever wondered, yes there are a lot of blue-nosed sectarians in the UK.
Maybe they’re ramping up their hatred of the English because the UDA’s star has waned and they don’t want to look bad by going on about the Taigs on the telly.
Still, they don’t let many Taigs into their masonic lodges…
Welcome to Scotland…
But I digress…
Why has it come about that most English people are pro Scottish (non)-‘independence’ and most Scottish people are against?
Are there any parallels to this, anywhere in the world? Well probably there are, where some local nutters have grabbed control of the local media, or this is the kind of crap that’s being used to distract people’s attention from important stuff and to keep them divided, or to warp their minds so that in the near future when they’re out of work and in big-time trouble, they can blame the wrong people, and never work out what’s really happened.
Welcome to public relations, or ‘politics’ as it’s sometimes called.
The supporters of ‘independence’ don’t know what independence means. That is not sad but pathetic. I heard one SNP MSP say yes, in the fullness of time, people would have Scottish passports, which would happen “when they come up for renewal”.
That’s the level of intelligence and knowledge in which most of this ‘debate’ is conducted.
My friends, independence means local nominal responsibility for all areas, including financial, health, foreign relations, and citizenship. Am I a cunt for saying that?
(Jersey hasn’t got independence, by the way. And given how things have gone in Jersey – read about the children’s teeth – personally I’d favour direct rule. Saving children from being tortured to death is more important than ‘autonomy’ of a handful of rich families getting massive rake-offs from money-laundering. Anyone disagree?)
So Scottish independence means that rump UK would be a foreign country.
There’d be Scottish citizenship and Scottish passports. Not according to any UK rules, but right away – meaning, there would be short-term technicalities to be sorted out with rump-UK authorities, but they’d be dealing with each other as ‘equal’ partners, and these technicalities could be sorted out within a year.
Citizenship – yes, it’s a bloody big question. Funny how it’s not being raised.
Just sign the blank cheque saying ‘Yes’, and all these things will be sorted out for you.
Ever get the feeling you’re being treated like an idiot?
Who gets Scottish citizenship?
Who keeps UK citizenship?
HERE ARE SOME QUESTIONS, 12 IN ALL
******************************************
OK – so we have three people who are currently UK citizens.
Alex, a Scottish 30-year-old, always lived in Scotland, except for 3 years at college in Wales and 1 year working in England, where he’s working now.
Then we have Barbara, an English 30-year-old, always lived in England, except for 3 years at college in Wales and 1 year working in Scotland, where she’s working now.
And our third person is Calum, a Scottish 30-year-old, always lived in Scotland.
In each case:
1) should the person get the right to Scottish citizenship?
2) should they keep their right to UK citizenship?
3) should either of the two governments make them give up their UK citizenship if they want to get Scottish citizenship?
4) should either of the two governments make them give up their right to Scottish citizenship (if they’ve got one) if they want to keep UK citizenship?
Any ‘independence’ supporters here, please can you answer these questions.
When answering, please assume that matters of Scottish citizenship are for a Scottish government, and matters of UK citizenship are for the rump-UK government.
And please don’t question that assumption, because that’s what independence means.
I’m talking about real people’s real concerns here. So ‘that will be decided after a vote in favour of independence’ isn’t an acceptable answer.
I personally might have been abrasive above, but these are perfectly reasonable questions.
If you only want to answer for one of the governments, and say that it all depends on what the other government does, that’s fine. I can handle tree diagrams.
******************************************
The reality is that if the ‘independence’ side wins the referendum, there will be major discontent if people are told they have to choose between Scottish and UK citizenship.
In other words, everyone in Scotland, barring a few nutters, will want to keep their UK citizenship.
It’s not just that 50-60% of people in Scotland are against Scottish ‘independence’; it’s 95%, if only they knew what it would mean.
And this is why the SNP and its pals are not telling people what independence would mean, and indeed are not actually advocating independence. (Sorry, but they’re not.) They treat Scottish people as if they are complete morons, who’d vote for anything with a bit of saltire on it.
Then if these carpetbaggers win the election, they’d be walking 10 foot high, continuing in the same vein, only getting worse – experts on nothing except a bit of blue branding, raking in backhanders, doing the Jock show on the TV, and throwing the population ever-decreasing amounts of ‘special Scottish’ crumbs.
PS I can imagine some Scottish nationalists reading this and wondering as to my own nationality, with a view to writing off what I say as the chauvinistic product of some poor bastard who was born ‘English’ and therefore thinks XYZ. Sadly that says more about them than it does about any English people or about me. Anyway I’m Scottish, I’ve lived nine-tenths of my life in Scotland, I’m temporarily living in Ireland, and I’ll be back home in time to vote in the referendum.
Major typo. I said:
there are a lot of blue-nosed sectarians in the UK.
Maybe they’re ramping up their hatred of the English because the UDA’s star has waned and they don’t want to look bad by going on about the Taigs on the telly.
Still, they don’t let many Taigs into their masonic lodges
I meant to type:
there are a lot of blue-nosed sectarians in Scotland
(There aren’t so many blue-nosed sectarians in England; those that do exist are usually from Scotland or Northern Ireland [and they are minorities both among Scots in England and people from NI in England), or with Scottish or NI connections; and a very few English people without Scottish or NI connections, in places like Lewes in Sussex.)
For those who don’t know what ‘blue nose’ means, it means ‘Protestant sectarian bigot’.
Oh fuck, I typed it wrong again. Sorry!!! I meant to type “There are a lot of blue-nosed sectarians in the SNP”
I really do apologise to anyone outside the SNP who I have wrongly insulted here. Sorry guys!
Mary, probably. They don’t give reasons for closing an account.
Off the BBC topic a new book is being released next week called ‘Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney and Their Masters’ by Andrew Kreig. My understanding is there is significant coverage of Karl Rove and his activities and all the other wheeler-dealers and puppeteers behind the White House puppets. Rove, as you probably know, was advisor to both Bush presidents and more recently advisor to the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. Its author, Kreig, is Director of the Justice Integrity Project in Washington.
That word ‘strident’ again 🙂
Diana Carney, who is British, used to work as a consultant for the US-based global management consultancy group ‘Monitor’, which earlier this month did a Lehmans and filed for bankruptcy protection.
Then she worked for HMG at the Department for International Development, and has been a consultant to various ‘charities’ (which ones?)
I believe in the possibility of redemption. (Waves to Craig.) But they’ve got to dish the dirt. She hasn’t.
Telling us all to spend less doesn’t cut the mustard.
She only wants people to spend less so they can ‘afford’ to pay interest to moneylenders.
If everyone suddenly tore up their debt and said they wouldn’t pay, the rulers wouldn’t have enough force to keep control. They don’t like it up ’em! 🙂
My next post will be from Berthold Brecht 🙂
As promised…
“One day Herr Keuner was asked just what he meant by ‘reversal of perspective’, and he told the following story. Two brothers, deeply attached to each another, had a strange habit. They would use pebbles to record the nature of each day’s events, a white stone for each moment of happiness, a black one for any misfortune or distress. They soon discovered, on comparing the contents of their jars of pebbles at the end of each day, that one brother collected only white pebbles, the other only black.
Intrigued by the remarkable consistency with which they each experienced similar circumstances in a quite different way, they resolved to seek the opinion of an old man famed for his wisdom. ‘You don’t talk about it enough’, said the wise man. ‘Each of you should seek the causes of your choices and explain them to the other.’
The two brothers followed this advice, and soon found that while the first remained faithful to his white pebbles, and the second to his black ones, in neither of the jars were there now so many pebbles as formerly. Where there had usually been thirty or so, each brother would now collect scarcely more than seven or eight.
Before long the wise man had another visit from the two brothers, both looking very downcast. ‘Not long ago,’ began the first brother, ‘my jar would fill up with pebbles as black as night. I lived in unrelieved despair. I confess that I only went on living out of force of habit. Now, I rarely collect more than eight pebbles in a day. But what these eight symbols of misery represent has become so intolerable that I simply cannot go on living like this.’ The other brother told the wise man: ‘Every day I used to pile up my white pebbles. These days I only get seven or eight, but these exercise such a fascination over me that I cannot recall these moments of happiness without immediately wanting to live them over again, even more intensely than before. In fact I long to keep on experiencing them forever, and this desire is a torment to me.’
The wise man smiled as he listened. ‘Excellent, excellent’, he said. ‘Things are shaping up well. You must persevere. One other thing. From time to time, ask yourselves why this game with the jar and the pebbles excites you so much.’
The next time the two brothers visited the wise man, they had this to say: ‘Well, we asked ourselves the question, as you suggested, but we have no answer. So we asked everyone in the village. You should see how much it has aroused them. Whole families sit outside their houses in the evenings arguing about white pebbles and black pebbles. Only the elders and notables refuse to take part in these discussions. They laugh at us, and say that a pebble is a pebble, black or white.’
The old man could not conceal his delight at this. ‘Everything is going as I had foreseen. Don’t worry. Soon the question will no longer arise; it has already lost its importance, and I daresay that one day soon you will have forgotten that you ever concerned yourselves with it.’
Not long thereafter the old man’s predictions were confirmed in the following manner. A great joy seized the people of the village. And as dawn broke after a night full of comings and goings, the first rays of sunlight fell upon the heads of the elders and notables, freshly struck from their bodies and impaled upon the sharp-pointed stakes of a palisade.”
Donald: Don’t want to be nasty, but looks like you’re invoking religious bigotry here. The SNP I was a member of wasn’t too worried about The Divide, and had members ranging from Wee No Washing Out On Sundays Frees to IRA sympathisers. And English, even. I hope it hasn’t changed, and it would be hard to see how it could do so.
Twenty per cent of SNP members are currently Catholic (not far off the national percentage) and rapidly increasing. Salmond is the leader of a national movement that’s had Catholics integral to it from founding days. Indeed, the first elected nationalist, the writer Sir Compton MacKenzie, was a Catholic convert. On becoming national convener of the SNP in 1990, Salmond made building even stronger bridges with the Catholic community a top priority.
Cited in: http://cumlazaro.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/catholics-in-independent-scotland.html
Much as it might suit the unionist parties to put a game of Micks v Tims in play, it’s a dirty trick.
Thanks Donald, a very refreshing view from below.
@Komodo. When you were in the SNP, what debate was there bout citizenship? be it EU or Scottish? I think that without any descriptive assurances and thoughts to the issue’s that under/overlie the law, i.e. EU law currently override’s British and Scottish law, which is not much known by people, even lawyers fail to recognise it at times, so what is in stall for future Scottish citizens?
And will voters, who will be allowed to vote?, get the opportunity to find out before they dare to make their crosses?
@ Mary and Komodo :
@ Mary – you said “I am sure that nobody is interested in the opinion of one person on another…”. Yes, I think that that’s basically correct (and is as it should be). But would you then also agree that nobody is (or should be) interested in one person’s opinion on, say, whether Catalan independence is “good” – to quote you – when this assertion is simply put on the table without even a minimum of factual back-up, ie, WHY it is “good”?
@ Komodo : thanks for yours of today at 9.15 am and the interesting list you provided. Fully agree with your post. I should take this opportunity of explaining that when I talked about the linguistic ability of Israeli spokespersons as compared to the Palestinians, I didn’t have in mind discussion programmes or lengthier analyses but rather the news reports coming from the conflict as it develops (ie, breaking news, if you will). And in those situations, I still maintain that it is probably difficult for the BBC to find, in Gaza and in the midst of the fighting, articulate-in-English Hamas spokesmen. Articulate-in-English spokespeople for the Palestinian cause are certianly numerous, but they are probably not to be found on the spot and in the midst of the fighting (they are in London, in universities abroad, or wherever). Hope that clarifies, and apologies for the length.
From what I understand, once Scotland becomes independent then they’ll have to reapply to the EU for membership.
I’d imagine they wouldn’t be under EU law during that period and would be subject only to Scots law.
Good way of getting rid of all the anti-civil liberties shite that the banksters’ mates have forced upon us.
I’m surprised people don’t protest more about the abuses of civil liberties. It’s quite horrendous what’s going on, and it’s to keep us down when tshtf. It ain’t to protect us.
Habbabkuk
The point is that whilst they have Israeli spokesmen swinging from the rafters at Broadcasting House, the BBC are seemingly unable to find an equal number, if any, of articulate spokesmen to the Palestinian cause, EVEN in London.
They don’t want to of course, because their function is to portray the Israelis as poor lickle mites who are always under attack!
Quite simply, they’re liars.
Just to be clear: I abhor the bigotry of both sides, and you’re right about the range of positions in the SNP. Outreach work has even reaped rewards among some of the formerly-IRA-friendly Scottish republicans, who tell their punters to think of supporting the SNP as tactical and temporary only – the poor things. But bigoted Protestant sectarianism hasn’t gone away in the party, which is why it will never get so much lasting support in Glasgow as in Edinburgh. (Not that I’m trying to stoke up any enmity there either!) I have heard senior SNP figures in Edinburgh and Fife talk in a bigoted way about people going to mass, just on the basis of their surnames, and with no knowledge about the people’s religious denomination or whether they have even got one.
The referendum will be much more like a UK general election than a Scottish parliament election or a local council election.
The SNP need to lull people into thinking that the question as to what would happen after a vote in favour of (non)-‘independence’ is one they don’t need to concern their pretty heads with. They need to tell people that voting for (non)-‘independence’ is the enjoyable option, and that it’s like supporting Scotland in the World Cup. I think people aren’t yet so gullible and soft. Scarily, I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. I think many people who have voted for the SNP will vote against (non)-‘independence’.
‘Better the devil you know’ is going to win this one. And rightly so. I mean how would pro-‘Yes’-ers answer the questions I posted, which concern real people’s real lives rather than what they want things to be called, or what relations between administrations in Edinburgh and London etc.
The Israelis aren’t just poor ickle mites, but ones who have to shoulder the burden of dealing with uppity natives and who never get any thanks for it.
(That’s sarcasm – just in case it comes across differently on any computer screens!)
I’m quite sure the Palestinian government – the real, Hamas one, not the quisling one – could field competent spokespeople.
But they wouldn’t be as skilled at lying through their teeth with every fucking word they say, as the Zionists are.
Thanks for your excellent reading material earlier. it has changed my views slightly on Morsi’s side stepping of the judiciary.
As for EU law, it is and has for some time, superior to UK law, that’s how the cookie was crumbled and envisaged by the Hague judges who designed the EU’s legislative framework, many of them British, humho.
If and when Britain is leaving the EU, it will leave its jurisdiction and loose all its rights it once had, everything will be up in the air. I expect the EU in its current form to perish, and re-awaken as a more protective market were outsiders have tom pay to be part, most likely more than our current contributions.
We pay roughly 8 billion and earn some 360odd billion in Europe’s markets. Those without UK/english nationality will most likely fall by the wayside, loosing all their common rights we currently have in the EU.
Habbabkuk Catalan Independence would be a good thing as it will guarantee that Catalan’s pay an equal into the national Spanish infrastructure coffer, than the other region. Currently, due to their economic prowess, ingenuity and intuition, Catalans pay far more than other regions and it somewhat riles them.
Do you think Catalans have no right to strive for Independence?
which brings us back to the assumed BBC Independence,RIP. Last nights Panorama programme focused on criminals off shoring, those banks who off shore and undertake the same dubious steps to get there, are kept outside the debate, as are the rich individuals who have exploited these systems for decades.
Why are our banks not harangued for the QE billions they siphoned away to these places? honey money that has never moved or earned its keep? sharing their nest space and their QE eggs with the criminals, guaranteeing liquidity and existence.
should have read ‘thanks for the excellent reading material, Herbie’,
its not my day, off for a walk.
@Herbie. When the SHTF, which can’t be that far off, civil liberties aren’t going to be an issue.
Food is.
I’d be very interested to hear whether you have detected in the referendum discourse (any part of it) any preparation of people’s minds (probably without their knowing it) for when the SHTF.