I make mistakes. I have ocasionally regretted something I wrote. However I have never written anything motivated by hatred of another race or religion, yet I am too “extreme” for the mainstream media. But Melanie Phillips, darling of the Mail and the BBC, can write this kind of incitement to religious hatred:
Romney lost because, like Britain’s Conservative Party, the Republicans just don’t understand that America and the west are being consumed by a culture war. In their cowardice and moral confusion, they all attempt to appease the enemies within. And from without, the Islamic enemies of civilisation stand poised to occupy the void.
With the re-election of Obama, America now threatens to lead the west into a terrifying darkness.
Can somebody please show anything I have written which is anywhere near as ill-motivated? Or anything near as barking mad? Yet Phillips is mainstream and I am in some way understood to be “beyond the pale” of accepted opinion. How does this happen?
Islam is a religion. I know a great many extremely good Muslims. There are also some bad ones, just as there are good and bad Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, you name it. What if I were to write:
“In their cowardice and moral confusion, they all attempt to appease the enemies within. And from without, the Jewish enemies of civilisation stand poised to occupy the void.”
Why is not everybody protected from hate speech? Unfortunately we don’t have an appropriate word as strong as “racist” to describe the kind of vile bigot Phillips is, Muslims not being a race. For Phillips to accuse Obama of conspiring with racial intolerance while promoting evil and hatred herself, is unspeakable.
Actually if Phillips is acceptable as a mainstream commentator, I am proud that I am not.
Clark; How can I resist the prosaic appeal? Let me announce a trifecta of mea culpa.
Effusive apologies Tech, Dre and Villager. Normally I have skin as thick as a lizard. This one got away from me. Anger is a poor instructor.
It seems we can’t do without your sagacious presence, Clark. Will you hang out more?
Komodo; I lost track of Dire Straits after their popular peak. I love blues, but with unique vocals mixed with romantic themes. Eric Clapton and Michael McDonald have been my favs. But the time to follow all musicians permutations, alas, is lacking. And that’s just the old guys I can’t keep up with.
Suhayl; Yes, indeedy…Laura Nyro. Huge talent; died way too young. I have great respect for those songwriters with passable vocal talent; Ry Cooder, Hoyt Axton, Dylan. Again, all old guys and gals.
I just can’t keep up.
Ben, that’s v decent of you, made me feel much better about the prospects for universal peace n harmony 🙂 warm handshake back & thanks.
Just as well I refreshed the page. I was about to comment at some length, but I see Ben Franklin has apologised. Well done.
Smiles all round.
Jesus… ah well, these love-ins are all very well from time to time, I suppose. Welcome back Clark.
love you too, Glenn 😉
Ben Franklin, Technicolour, Dreoilin,
thank you all for making peace; Glenn, thanks for the welcome back. Ben, yes, I have returned to commenting, but not to “moderating”, though I think my efforts above are more worthy of that title than queue-clearing and spam-deletion. Anyway, now that I’m free of the duty of logging on whenever possible to perform maintenance tasks, my visits here will be more a matter of choice, so hopefully I’ll feel more relaxed about it. No more moderators’ interface, no more sifting through IP addresses tracking down spam and trying to identify sock-puppets – hooray!
Glenn, I know that reconciliation sessions can get a bit icky, but it’s better than the alternatives. Just pinch your nose; it’ll soon pass.
Damn. The sky was clear during my walk home about an hour ago, and now it’s totally overcast. For anyone with clear sky over the next forty eight hours or so, anywhere on Earth, look up whenever you get the chance and you might see some Leonid meteors; they were really spectacular in ’99, with some casting flashes bright enough to see on the ground, and some leaving incandescent trails that persisted for nearly an hour. If you see one, keep looking, because the Leonids tend to arrive as a fairly short shower, 30 to 60 minutes of intense activity, though we’re not really due for another display like ’99 until 2032 or 2033.
A bit off-topic, but Clark – could you please help me out here with a sanity-check. See this thread about an eclipse (including the few comments):
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/11/14/watch-nasa-scientists-in-australia-treated-to-rare-solar-eclipse/
A fellow commented that the entire surface of the moon will receive an equal amount of sunlight per year.
But surely only one part of the moon receives less sunlight, and that is the side facing us, and that’s going to be eclipsed by the Earth once a month?
I’m making the fairly safe assumption that you’re interested in astronomy too 🙂
Komodo,
It has nothing to do with feminism. Or rather it has a lot to do with it, because these charities fancy themselves feminist, and mysteriously equate feminism with misandry or gender hatred. Ironically, they are actually undermining feminism and reinstating patriarchy in their anti-shared-parenting agenda, which constructs woman as mother-at-home and man as dad-in-public-job.
Do a google search on family law/shared parenting + ‘Gingerbread,’ ‘Rights for Women’ ‘Bananas’ ‘Netmums.’ The Guardian usually covers all this garbage too. It’s not baseball bats in the literal sense, but the propaganda is such that it might as well be. If you had a hundred different charities organized by men all saying that women were emotionally abusive and that men and children needed to be protected, how would you feel as a woman?
The point I was trying to make is that we have sanctioned forms of hate crime and hatred (and separated fathers, simply by virtue of being men, come in for the worst of it), in spite of the fact that society is supposed to frown upon hate crime.
Also, if you need more evidence, have a look at Karen Woodall’s excellent blog. She is an expert on gender studies, director of the center for separated families, and strikes me as someone who is worthy of the name feminism, but she does not shy away from exposing the hate crime of these charities.
Sadly, she has had to discontinue her blog on account of harassment and threats from certain unhealthy individuals and women’s groups that are only concerned with legitimating their government funding, wildly distorting statistics, and spreading lies which papers like the Guardian are so good at regurgitating.
There are human rights campaigners, and then there are charities and groups that claim to be human rights oriented, but are ultimately playing the game of politics. Someone who really cares about human rights and a better world for children worldwide is almost by definition someone who is acting alone. It cannot be any other way.
Melanie Phillips (shit be upon her name) is just paving the way for the next round of genocidal Israeli assault against the largest prison in history.
They (the Zionist scum) have to say how terrible their ‘enemies’ (victims is the correct word) are and what terrible suffering they are bringing on Israel and if no one stops them, why, it will be another Holocaust (c) and it will be our fault unless we stand idly by and let them terrorise who they like.
Melanie Phillips is indeed quite made – and no more rational than the BNP. No idea why she still gets invited on Question Time regularly.
Glenn_UK, the plane of the Moon’s orbit about Earth is slightly tilted with respect to the plane of Earth’s orbit about the Sun, so the Moon doesn’t pass through Earth’s shadow every month, only when Earth and the Moon happen to align. When they do, yes, it’s the hemisphere of the Moon that faces Earth which gets a bit less time in the sunshine. If the two orbits were in exactly the same plane, or were sufficiently close, there would be a lunar eclipse in the middle of every full moon.
But in those comments, Muloirea is correcting Phil E. Drifter. Drifter doesn’t seem to understand that the surface of the far side of the Moon has been “mapped in exquisite detail”, and seems to think that doing so would pose some sort of problem with contrast. Muloirea did qualify with “essentially”, presumably to allow for the occasional lunar eclipse.
Having seen many a comments-section argument escalate beyond all bounds of reason, I predict that Muloirea will now ignore your question, unwarrantedly assuming that your comment was in support of Drifter’s position.
Ragaman at 15 Nov, 10:41 am:
It already started about three days ago; Israel is punishing the Palestinians for continuing with their bid for partial UN recognition by attacking Gaza again.
MEl is a racist. Islam is just as much a race as Judaism is. And the likes of Mel never shy away from calling people Anti-semites, racists and bigots when people disagree with Israel or refuse to Agree with Israel enough. People can and do convert in to and out of Judaism just as people convert in to and out of Islam.
The reason why I say she is a racist, is she her attacks are against Muslims as a people. Not against Islamic laws such as praying 5 times a day, fasting, Hujj and giving Charity. She has no problems with the Islamic beliefs such as belief that God is one, Belief in Angels, Books God sent down(Quran, Bible, Torah and Plasm etc), Messingers God Sent (Mohommed, Jesus, Moses, Noah etc, Belif in life after death, the day of judgment and the fact that all God and bad is from God.
What she has a problem with is ancestry and race. Even though Muslim is not a racial term, her use of it is. When she uses it in the context of Israel she uses it to state that land belongs to one race and not the other. When she uses it in context of Iraq and Afghanistan she uses it in the context that the lesser races in those contries are unfit to rule themselves so must be ruled by the superior white race.
She is a racist as can be.
To compare her to Hitler would be an insult to Hitler.
She is much more racist then even he is.
Hello Clark (14 Nov, 1:46 am),
“Snap, sorry, I still haven’t had time to look at that other thread.”
Letting you know I am patiently waiting and kept off for a week now: it is not just a storm in a teacup about some hasty moderation decision, as that is not what it concerns, (nor my comments elsewhere on the “captcha”/JS etc.)
For a more complete context of my dozens of informative research contributions showing my reserved, scientific manner, and other compliments made to me, one needs also to see the “Anna Ardin’s Police Statement”, “Aiding and Abetting” threads and even elsewhere such as in “CIA Look to Swamp Correa”.
I am dismayed to find that one week on Jon has not had the decency to even remove his post where he unjustly attacked me.
I think my composure and tendency to understatement above disguises the serious results of this lack of regard for basic principles of moderation by the sole remaining moderator here. After your resignation, I braced for less management of trolls and conflicts, but not this.
I hope that a way can be found to resolve it so that I am not excluded from contributing more from my archives or expressing my opinion free from apprehension of any further such attacks on my person by the moderator.
@Clark,
Ferret, I’m sorry about the abuse you encountered. I’m also sorry about Jon’s reply to you.
Thank you so much for your message, I didn’t know you’d given up moderating and am sorry you have.
To be honest, after Jon’s reply I was beginning to doubt my sanity but you have made me realise I am human after all.
🙂
@Jon
Your reply adds insult to injury.
If Craig has a policy which is consistent with his statement above, you are certainly not implementing it.
Ferret, try to remember that everyone bar Craig is a guest here, and speak with civility accordingly.
Look, if you open blog comments to the public you can hardly call posters “guests”, or expect us to think that we are. That would be like a shop calling its customers “guests”, or a public park calling its visitors “guests”. Legally a park belongs to the council but you are hardly a guest when you visit it.
b) What part of my message was uncivil? I have read it and re-read it and cannot see what you are talking about. I think you just don’t like what I said, but it wasn’t said uncivilly. And given the abuse I received, and your continued lack of action to stop it (or to prevent any recurrence) I think I have been most restrained.
The moderators that look after this platform are volunteers, and are not immediately keen to take your instructions.
Oh for goodness sake. I am not commanding you or ordering you around as you are implying, what I am saying that I received disgusting abuse on this blog that is borderline illegal and asked you, the moderator, to do something about it. The fact that instead you have a go at me says it all, really.
FWIW, the Al-Hilli threads are unmoderatable – each has thousands of comments, and we don’t read everything. Report serious infractions as Craig suggests
So… did you read that comment, or not? And who should I report them to – you? You are hardly being sympathetic to my complaint, Jon, are you – with the best will in the world.
and don’t respond to them, at all, whatsoever, in any form. It fuels them if you do, and it also becomes more difficult to delete items where there is a long conversation dependent on it.
So you’re saying it’s my fault if someone abuses me? And I mustn’t respond to it at all? If you don’t read everything (as you say above) then how will posters be protected from abuse?
I am confused as to the policy here (if any), how it is supposed to be implemented, and how we are to be protected from offensive abuse.
And I feel insulted and attacked by the way you are responding to my complaint.
On another note, the not-forgetting-the-al-hillis thread is down again, with a recurrence of the “allowed memory size exhausted” error.
Snap,
I stand by my commentary on your interlocutions with Arbed – I think her responses were greatly patient in the circumstances. However you have not been prevented from posting in any way, and I don’t believe you’ve ever been deleted here either. So, dust yourself down, and carry on posting.
Please do consider what I said, though. The posts I referred to contained a slew of unnecessary personal slights against another poster, and that they were masked with politeness and composure doesn’t change their basic character. I would be willing to accept that you added them as an accurate summary of your feelings rather than specifically to offend, but if that’s the case then you would probably want to know if they sound offensive! And, by a country mile, they do.
Ferret,
I’d have said what rankled should be obvious:
So, you’d called Craig a hypocrite and implied I wasn’t doing my job properly – not a good start if you want assistance with something.
Perhaps I should have explained why I felt it was a good idea not to respond to abuse. The al-Hilli threads were initially marred a great deal by petty arguments that got out of hand, even when I intervened several times to ask people to stop participating in them. So yes, ignoring someone totally is often a good way to deal with it.
In terms of reporting possible infractions, use the contact form as Craig has previously suggested. Or add a comment permalink in a post, and address it to me, and I should spot it. If there are still some in the several thousands of posts on the threads in question, add them in this thread.
Jon,
please do not address me or make this any worse, as your post above causes further damage to my person. My previous post to Clark above ended with my need to be “free from apprehension of any further such attacks on my person by the moderator.”
I pointed out the principles involved in my iniital post and others to Clark above, and asked for mediation from another person.
You did not respond to my initial question: “Otherwise who do you propose is in a position to mediate this most unjustified situation I am being cornered into?”
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/why-i-am-convinced-that-anna-ardin-is-a-liar/comment-page-5/#comment-379624
My posts here have been addressed to Clark alone, who responded (13 Nov, 2:44 am):
“If you post a link, or start and end links to the section you’re referring to, I’ll take a look at it tomorrow.”
I have been complying with the following advice and have not responded to the substance of your intervening post and find it most tactless and injurious that you intervene again here with further proclamations and directives to me in further disrespect of the situation and obligations of the role of moderator:
“and don’t respond to them, at all, whatsoever, in any form. It fuels them if you do, and it also becomes more difficult to delete items where there is a long conversation dependent on it.”
Similarly I refrain from responding to your reiterations above which you seem still not to appreciate are only your personal perceptions or opinions based on a hasty one-sided partial reading of the exchanges interpreted according to your constructs of social norms and some very questionable psychology.
And here’s another beaut. Conservative Party Election Campaign Chief, Lynton Crosby allegedly referred to Muslims as “fucking Muslims” in a diatribe. And then, like a good, (to quote Malcolm X) “house negro”, Baroness Flather reportedly issuing a statement in support of what Crosby allegedly said.
‘According to a source, Mr Crosby said Mr Johnson should concentrate on traditional Tory voters instead of “f****** Muslims”. The source added: “He definitely used that phrase” and said: “Lynton’s view was that chasing the Muslim vote and other ethnic groups was a waste of time – and he frequently expressed himself in very strong terms. Some people found it very offensive.”‘ [from the first link, below] [usual prefixes]
islamophobia-watch.com/islamophobia-watch/2012/11/18/lynton-crosby-told-boris-johnson-not-to-waste-his-time-chasi.html
huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/11/25/shreela-flather-lynton-crosby-muslim_n_2187647.html
Good. Dig a very deep hole, please, and keep digging. Better still, deport Crosby and don’t let him back in; Crosby should go back to where he came from. Baroness Flather, on the other hand, may wish to continue crawling up the large colon of White Power; she should be informed, though, that it is a considerable distance to the mouth.