Over 30,000 people within two days had signed an old languishing petition against the Tory bias of Laura Kuenssberg. They were motivated by outrage at the undisguised bias of her election night coverage, though that bias had already been evident daily.
For 35,000 people to be outraged enough to seek out and sign an online petition, millions must have felt that outrage. But the real furore started after 38 Degrees cancelled the petition due to “sexist abuse”. Unfortunately for them, they were forced to admit there was virtually no sexist abuse from the 35,000 people who had signed the petition. They next claimed the sexist abuse was on unrelated social media, but refused point blank to present any evidence of it. Then an extraordinary group started to coalesce in defence of Kuenssberg – Laura Bates, Yvette Cooper, Jess Phillips etc – all of them denouncing this widespread sexist abuse. Not one of these people produced a single shred of evidence of the existence of this sexist abuse.
Probably some abuse is there. I am a much, much less well known figure than Kuenssberg, but since I started writing on this topic I have been the subject of numerous extremely unpleasant tweets and facebook messages. Please note the same epithet applied to Kuenssberg would undoubtedly be claimed as misogynist abuse:
I have cropped this to protect the identity of the sender, but I assure you it is perfectly real and not at all unusual. (This is actually sexist on my part as if it were a man I would not have cropped it. I can only ask you to forgive me, I am old). I am sure Kuenssberg, being vastly more famous, gets more abuse than I do. But the fact either of us receives abuse does not mean we are above criticism. The young woman tweeting above being unpleasant is not evidence I am right about anything. Still less does it mean criticism of me should be suppressed.
To say that abusers “hijacked” the petition criticising Kuenssberg for her terrible biased journalism, is like saying your car is hijacked by an insect landing on it.
But the extremely cheerful news is that the furore caused by 38 Degrees removing the petition has meant that tens of millions more people have heard of the petition, than if it had gone ahead. David Cameron standing up in the House of Commons saying Kuenssberg is not biased in itself will have made a million people realise that she is. Laura Kuenssberg, meet Barbra Streisand. The “Streisand Effect”, named after the actress’ attempt to suppress photos of her mansion, is the internet phenomenon whereby attempts to suppress information lead to far more people knowing it.
In this case, that is really important. Because what has struck me the last few days is the number of people who are saying “Wow, I thought she was pretty biased, but I thought it was just me.” No, it wasn’t just you. She really is the most appalling Tory shill. And now tens of millions more people are alert to it.
The Establishment, by its attempt to invent a “Misogynist campaign” and link it to Jeremy Corbyn, has just shot itself squarely in the foot.
You might enjoy this interesting word analysis of the comments of the 38 Degrees petition. The comments themselves can still be found from here. It should be understood that 35,000 people signed, but the large majority only sign and do not leave comments.
![count [607052]](https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/count-607052-1024x512.png)
O/T, lest we think the world revolves round the BBC:
http://www.counterfire.org/news/18335-israel-bombs-gaza-as-anti-semitism-row-rages
It’s getting rather familiar this: an outbreak of Poor Little Israel, you Evil Antisemites, in the MSM, followed by another turkey shoot in Gaza. No connection, obviously.
All Nationalist parties use a perceived victimisation to get the support of the people. The National Socialists in Germany told the people they were being victimised, the Zionist government in Israel tells the Israelis they are being victimised and just take a look at this blog where the people of Scotland keep being told they are being victimised. It’s nationalist modus operandi and people fall for it every time.
Here we go again with Fred and his comparisons, comparing nationalists in Scotland to that of Nazi Germany. You really are a ignorant pr*ck Fred.
If Scottish nationalists are similar to nationalist socialists of Germany, then why are we encouraging people to come and live in Scotland, and not stigmatising them and compelling them to leave the country. Oh wait I’ve just described Westminster’s policy on immigration, what do you know.
I just replied to Ba’al without starting with a personal insult, you decide you have to call me an ignorant pr*ck.
That is what makes you like the other nationalists, if you are so eager to convince these nationalists are not like other nationalists (and all nationalists do believe they are the good nationalists) why do you behave so much like them?
What exactly is the difference between Zionist claims of victimisation by anti-Semites and Scottish Nationalists claims of victimisation by the British establishment?
Fred is right, RoS.
I’m not sure the SNP has yet announced any plans to keep its Pictish polulation in a ghetto and shoot at it from time to time, Fred, so I can be excused for thinking your comparison is inexact.
But as we’re both shoehorning here, would Sir care to try this one on?
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20160514-israel-angry-with-egypt-for-allowing-cement-into-gaza/
So what makes the Israelis think they have the right to stop cement going into Gaza and how do we convince them they don’t?
Earlier today RoS commented on my opinions of the named person scheme with these words:
“You are so blinded by hatred of the SNP and nationalists as a whole, that your judgement has been clouded beyond reason.”
Israelis consider themselves victims and to them “but they fire rockets at us” justifies the cement embargo. Any criticism must therefore be down to a hatred of Jews preventing the criticiser thinking rationally.
1. Your guess is as good as mine. Israel has consistently denied Gaza access to construction materials, between knocking down large tracts of Gaza’s housing and infrastructure. The aid is paid for. BDS seems to work, up to a point, but ending the tacit approval of the USA, given on the (spurious) grounds that this magically advances US interests, would do a lot more.
2. Your continuance of your perpetual catfight with RoS wasn’t the subject of my original post. Nor is it the subject of this one.
Isn’t it?
You think Israelis are somehow different to other people? That Germans in the 1930s were different to us and different to Germans now? You’re not interested in why Israel doesn’t allow cement into Gaza they just do it because they’re all bad people?
Israelis have been told they are the victims, that they are the oppressed and they believe it and they vote in the people who told them that. They believe what their government does is justified because they believe they are the underdogs fighting against an overwhelming enemy that hates them. They think they are the ones in danger of being pushed into the sea.
The facts are clear to them, cement makes bunkers, cement makes launching pads for rockets and they think anyone who can’t see that it must be because they hate them.
Nationalism is nationalism is nationalism.
Fred: You are arguing from the particular to the general again. The country in which you live has always been nationalist. The country in which you were born has always been nationalist. Switzerland is a stellar example of a nationalist nation. The question is of the degree of expression of nationalism: extreme and hegemonistic in the case of the Third Reich, merely protecting ithe special interests of its population in the case of Switzerland. And incidentally a high standard of living and an enviable degree of civilisation*.
Without common identities, societies crumble. The nation-state is in my well-worn opinion, the largest possible unit in which a common identity can be applied. Beyond this, linguistic, ethnic, attitudinal differences become unignorable, and, since we are very far from angels, causes of dispute. Even in the USA, State-scale differences have to be accommodated by separate State governments, and we are a very long way from imposing the common cultural norms and single language inherent in the USA’s system on Europe’s centre, let alone its periphery.
Your dream of mankind, working in harmony for the good of all, having abolished nationalism (hence,nationality) is impossible. In its current incarnation, global capitalism, the dream creates inequalities, foments wars and drives down individual incomes. Demonstrably, and without doubt.
I believe you still have all the rights of a citizen of Scotland within the Union. What drives you to believe that these would be withdrawn come independence? That your case would be that of a Palestinian in Israel? Do you fear that membership of the Cof E or the Methodists would disqualify you from residence there, as it would in Israel? Perhaps you fear that an independent Scotland would annex Berwick by force?
You base your entire case on alleged fearmongering by the SNP. Do you really, really think the SNPs tactics are unique? That they are not equally practised by the Union’s parties? (see also antisemitism smears, pro-extremist Islam smears, leave-Europe smears, stay-in-Europe smears, pig-fellatio smears…) What you allege to be symptoms of nationalism are in fact the currency of all politics in the West, regrettably, and nowhere more than in the United, stress United States. They are the currency of commercial PR too.
*I willingly except cuckoo-clocks from this.
Baal
“Your dream of mankind, working in harmony for the good of all, having abolished nationalism (hence,nationality) is impossible. In its current incarnation, global capitalism, the dream creates inequalities, foments wars and drives down individual incomes. Demonstrably, and without doubt. ”
I am keen to hear this undoubtable demonstration. I must declare I am doubting it already but I keep an open heart.
Am I misreading your quote. I am taking the dream of the second sentence to be the same dream as the first. Perhaps you meant otherwise.
According to UNICEF the Israelis murdered 25 Palestinian children in the last three months of 2015, often falsely stating that they were trying to knife the poor, innocent Israel Death Force killers. What’s not to worship?
We all know the score by now, don’t we? We know who the feminists work for.
This song is a complete classic, and I always thought it was done by an American Band. The lyrics are extremely interesting, and one interpretation of them suggests at least a slight element of telepathy.
One of the interesting things about this video – which I guess was done by a Dutch TV station in a TV Studio in Holland (because that is where the band come from) is that it is a bit similar to music studio broadcasts done by The BBC in London at the same time.
However the Dutch Audience Looks Bored Shiitless.
That might be because it was in 1973 and they would all be on Telly…or this might have been the 27th take…and they couldn’t stand to hear the song for a 28th time on the same day. I don’t think its anything to do with their Nationality – cos I’ve been to Holland Twice. The first time in 1968..and they seemed quite normal then. In fact I found The Dutch people Very Nice and most of them speak English better than me.
The Technical Quality of both Sound and Vision is Excellent – at least as good as The BBC.
“Golden Earring – Radar Love (1973) HD 0815007 ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf53Pg2AkdY
Tony
Electoral Commission to take legal proceeding over Tory fraud, it’s the first time in British history this has happen according to the Canary.
Two well know ex-politicians act bemused when Andrew Neil mentions the whole sordid affair. Watch the clip.
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/05/13/andrew-neil-asks-michael-portillo-and-alan-johnson-about-election-expenses-fraud-their-reaction-is-priceless/
New “soft coup” acting president of Brazil Michel Temer revealed as US intelligence informant.
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/05/wikileaks-exposes-newly-selected-brazilian-president-as-puppet-for-us-intelligence.html
Have you actually read the link to Wikileaks contained in the link you supply, RoS?
You should, you know, instead of just jumping up and down with excitement. Or perhaps indignation.
President Tenner, ten years ago as a Congressman, kept various Americans up to date with political developments in Brazil, with particular reference to the political party of which he was a member (then part of the opposition).
Nothing heinous about that, and certainly nothing to justify your link calling Tenner a “puppet”.
Here’s a challenge, RoS : take the trouble to actually read the Wikileaks link and then paste-post on here a few passages which would justify calling Tenner a “puppet”.
Off you go!
“President Tenner, ten years ago as a Congressman, kept various Americans” employees of the US Embassy “up to date with political developments in Brazil, with particular reference to the political party of which he was a member” which, he assured them, was not a political party in the traditional sense, but a conglomerate of regional bosses, influence pedlars and mafiosa who were willing to work for the US Embassy.
Tenner is more than a puppet, he is an agent of imperialism selling his countrymen and betraying the Constitution.
As Glenn Greenwald writes:
“….Her successor will be Vice President Michel Temer of the PMDB party (pictured, above). So unlike impeachment in most other countries with a presidential system, impeachment here will empower a person from a different party than that of the elected President. In this particular case, the person to be installed is awash in corruption: accused by informants of involvement in an illegal ethanol-purchasing scheme, he was just found guilty of, and fined for, election spending violations and faces an 8-year-ban on running for any office. He’s deeply unpopular: only 2% would support him for President and almost 60% want him impeached (the same number that favors Dilma’s impeachment). But he will faithfully serve the interests of Brazil’s richest: he’s planning to appoint Goldman, Sachs and IMF officials to run the economy and otherwise install a totally unrepresentative, neoliberal team (composed in part of the same party – PSDB – that has lost 4 straight elections to the PT)…”
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/11/brazils-democracy-to-suffer-grievous-blow-today-as-unelectable-corrupt-neoliberal-is-installed/
Off you go! habbacrook
But now the mercantile spirit has shown its profound malevolence. The mask has fallen; monopoly and deceit are now revealed. Philosophy can no longer deceive itself about the infamies of the serpent with which it has been associated. It is time for philosophy to break with commerce and return to the path of Truth, which is wholly alien to the mercantile spirit. A discovery is about to banish commerce from the womb of civilisation. If it was pardonable to encourage commerce when there was some doubt about its perversity, it would be odious to do so today, now that Truth has unmasked it and cast it into disgrace.
Manuscrits de Charles Fourier. Années 1857-58. (bit of an optimist, but there you go)
Bevin
Perhaps you would like to read the Wikileaks link and then paste-post on here a few passages which would justify calling Tenner a “puppet”?
Since RoS seems to have fallen silent.
And since you seems ti want to participate in the discussion.
There’s my challenge to you. Put up or shut up. Off you go!
Let us watch and see what M Tenner does shall we?
“…In this particular case, the person to be installed is awash in corruption: accused by informants of involvement in an illegal ethanol-purchasing scheme, he was just found guilty of, and fined for, election spending violations and faces an 8-year-ban on running for any office. ..”
If the guy were not a puppet he would never have been put in power.
If the guy were not a puppet you would not be rushing ti his defence. He’s on the same side, with a slightly more elevated position.
Bevin
I am rather disappointed.
After your intervention in this debate, I asked you to find a few lines in the Wikileaks cables to back up the claim that President Tenner was a mere “puppet” of the Americans.
All you can come up with (posting at 01h55 in the morning) is the following:
“If the guy were not a puppet he would never have been put in power.
If the guy were not a puppet you would not be rushing ti his defence. He’s on the same side, with a slightly more elevated position.”
Not very good, is it? No quotes from the Wikileaks cables -zilch, bada, bubkis.
And, of course, RoS – who started this off – remains silent. Perhaps he hasn’t, unlike me, got round to reading the cables yet.
You are both in the junior league, aren’t you.
I’m sorry Bevin unless you can come up with a genuine copy of Terner’s CERTIFICATE OF PUPPETHOOD signed by President Obama you aint gonna satisfy La Habs!
No, just a few sentences from the Wikileaks cables would do.
Or perhaps you’d like to help?
Sorry Habs I can’t be bothered and in any case I’ve gotta go out and earn a penny in a bit.
I just enjoy the “to and fro” and friendly banter on here!
And the new Central Bank Chief, an enthusiast for destroying ALL the anti-poverty and social measures of the last thirteen years, and inflicting austerity on the untermenschen, is a Jew born in Israel. Who would have thought it possible?
“And the new Central Bank Chief { ie, of Brazil}, an enthusiast for destroying ALL the anti-poverty and social measures of the last thirteen years, and inflicting austerity on the untermenschen, is a Jew born in Israel.”
________________
Your point, exactly?
I am thoroughly uncomfortable with this posting. I do not like the juxtaposition of Jew, Israel, and untermenschen, which deliberately conflates Jewishness with German National Socialism. There are plenty of Jewish people born in Israel who are not austerity advocates.
I would have thought that criticism of his opinions, rather than his origins, would be more appropriate, and I have an unpleasant feeling that your emphasis is the other way around. Not happy to engage with you while you put up postings like that.
I agree, John. This just illustrates the fact that there is actually quite a lot of anti-Semitism around, including from a minority of those who post here. That kind of bigoted post actually serves to smear the blog.
BTW, is it just my impression or does your gravatar keep changing?
I think that it is unlikely that you mean the Junior League
“Junior Leagues are educational and charitable women’s organizations aimed at improving their communities through volunteerism and building their members’ civic leadership skills through training. According to its mission, “The Association of Junior Leagues International Inc.”
But perhaps you do. It is just another example of your awkwardness with the vernacular. Are you a Martian? If so please confess, it would make your persona much more interesting.
But back to your question: I did not quote from wikileaks because I do not need to and to go through the exercise of seeking out evidence there, in an old cable, for something the world can see would be tedious and unprofitable.
Please do not delude yourself by imagining for a moment that I would give a pinch of my dog’s excrement for your good opinion. I value you only your constant insolence and unfailing defence of the crimes of imperialism. It is against the backcloth of evil that virtue appears to its best advantage.
Habbanotherniceday
The aggrieved, the outraged, the offended. Click to ban, click to sack. Desperately sad, slightly sinister.
Does Habba text you when he’s running out of quibbles? Or is it telepathy?
Baal
I prefer you up on Olympus giving the gods some stick rather than rolling in the gutter in an attempt to curry favour with “Bevin”, RoS and company.
Wha\t you prefer is a matter of sublime indifference to me, Habb. You might pass that on to your lackeys.
I’m sure it is, Baal but I just thought I’d let you know anyway. For your own good, of course.
Comment of the week (Nevermind): “Africa is suffering badly, not just from our shut door policy towards refugees”.
what do you despise about your little islander syndrome, go find a couch and show some spine, you jelly fish, for all the suffering you have cause in that part of the world. Africa is under full pressure from its ex colonialists.
my apologies to jelly fish
David Babbs apologised and regretted not taking screen grabs of the purported mysoginist abuse, which Joe, the petition’s originator apparently witnessed too, leading to his full agreement with the decision to take down the petition he’d started. Where’s the big conspiracy?
More relevantly, I’ve been trawling YouTube for any evidence of the horrendous bias Ms Kuennsberg is accused of, but just see some quite combative questioning of politicians of all persuasions. Can anyone post any links showing her in the worst possible light. I remember thinking perhaps once that she seemed a little biased, but then thought maybe it’s just the slightly sneery set of her features, which is hardly a basis to make serious criticism of her ‘positioning’.
Yes Jim. Go lie down.
Links? Or didn’t you bother to collect any evidence just like Joe and David Babbs are being excoriated for?
You would only need to have turned on Radio 4 at any point in the past month to notice the anti-Corbyn bias. LK was just riding the crest of the wave.
[Yeah, i know – don’t feed the troll, but still]
I am on Jim’s side on this one.
And I note you couldn’t resist calling him a troll – which doesn’t increase respect for you and your “arguments”.
Perhaps you missed the posts?
The biass is quite evident and widely held to be so. Indeed, the only fault found with the argument has been that some of those calling for Laura’s re–assignment were a bit too emphatic in their commentary.
I’m not sure that Ms Kuenssberg would thank you for ‘defending’ her. It is clear that her stock in trade is her ability to make tendentious charges against critics of imperialism without breaking into laughter or raising her arm at a 45 degree angle to her shoulder.
Hi Bevin – I read the opinion piece by ‘Lenin’s Tomb’ and thought it was pretty well argued, but I still don’t see the egregious bias that you seem to. Are there any links to the election night coverage which I missed, but everyone’s complaining about?
@Jim,
Maybe you could actually begin by listening to the BBC Radio 4 interview with Sir Michael Lyons, which clearly demonstrates concerns about bias about the Beeb’s current affairs output, and then you could comment about why Journalists, who are supposed to report on the news, have now decided to influence the agenda itself by orchestrating resignations live on air – but of course in your book this ain’t fucking biased.
Pull the other one mate, for this old git is struck by the media’s bias the moment I switch on a TV in the UK, and I’m struck because I’m only in the UK one month per year and don’t have access period to any broadcast TV where I live, given my TV is not linked to any means of receiving terrestrial media, which means most content I watch is either via the Internet, or downloaded from the Internet, which means all my TV viewing is stripped of adverts and of bias, unless I download it to check – most Newsnight, Channel 4 news and BBC news can be downloaded easily and verified for bias, and the BBC today certainly acts more biased than it did in the 80’s and 90’s – something to do with the impact of 9/11 and Blair’s assault on truth prior and after the Iraq 2 invasion. In a nutshell, its seems we are now unable to produce anything like ‘Death on the Rock’.
Chris
“911 and Blair’s assault on truth”
The idea that 911 and Blair are anything more than business as usual misunderstands what ails us. It’s just more of this simplistic individual blaming at the expense of a historical perspective looking for causes.
The BBC has always propagandised for the British state, long before Blair and 911. The general strike and the miners strike are two obvious and unequivocal examples. Perhaps you would care to counter this rather than repeatedly make unexplained claims to the contrary..
And for the record, Death On A Rock was not the BBC.
Here is evidence of BBC bias.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32537024
Nigel Farage of the UKIP party tells it how it is, blatant BBC bias against the right wing.
Fred
To keep using the right wing left wing thing risks missing the point. The media rails against anything that threatens the capitalist establishment. Farage correctly identifies there is media/establishment bias against opposing the EU. You might have noticed this recently as we approach the referendum. Constant reports of endless establishment figures saying we must stay in. Absolutely nothing about European soldiers at gunpoint daily turning those escaping war and oppression back into the arms of persecutors.
Who are this establishment? People like Richard Branson? I used to buy my Furry Freak Brothers comics off him.
At a thumping profit for him no doubt.
My point is that Richard Branson used to be seen as a threat to the establishment but then as the people who listened to Lou Reed records and marched against the Vietnam war became middle aged he became part of the establishment.The establishment isn’t fixed, it changes and evolves.
Fred
What JSD says.
I had to google “Furry Freak Bros”. Everything will be appropraited by capital. Including all counter culture and rebellion. See the situationists for more info. I’m going to guess you appreciated the pistols too.
The war on drugs is above everything a murderous business based on lies. The numbers of drug war deaths in Mexico alone dwarfs those in Israeil/Palestine these past few years.
Fred
“The establishment isn’t fixed, it changes and evolves.”
True but not sure what light that casts on this thread.
I don’t think the tail wags the dog. The people who gain the capital, the power and the influence, are the people who give the people what they want. Corporatism is a form of democracy but a democracy where people vote with their wallets every day so you have to constantly keep the people happy.
Not quite sure how your Branson comment relates but I see what you are saying now. You believe in the market. Actually I don’t believe you do. You’re just posting now. But, ok, whatever. I am not going to be derailed from my assertions by arguing against a disingenuous point with no bearing on my point. A belief in the market doesn’t unmarginalise non-capitalist opinion.
Jim
In light of the obsession with a petition over Keunssberg your request is more than perfectly reasonable. I am amazed others have not asked a similar question. The reactions to your comment (“Lie down”, “Troll”, “You missed the point”) are telling and embarassing.
All I found was one youtube clip and some tweets. I didn’t spend long looking though so perhaps there is more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TJv15l6eIc
http://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/laura-kuenssberg-still-not-good-enough.html
Let me be clear that on a wider perspective I have no doubt censorship is everyday and all pervasive in our medias. It doesn’t work like censorship of old where government departments sat in newsrooms with scissors. First look to the outcomes.
I am also convinced that there is bias and censorship in our mass medias. It doesn’t work like we are told censorship works. There isn’t a government department hanging over every nwsroom with scissors. It is more institutional bias. It is systematic and sympotmatic of far wider problems in our political discourses. Let me try to briefly put the case as I see it:
The bias is in favour of the corporate state. Our politics is largely influenced and paid for by big business. The state is the means by which big business maintains it’s privilege. All mainstream news is owned by corporations or the state. In matters that threatened the continued operation of the corporate state there is unanimimous bias that would have made the editors of Soviet papers blush.
First you need to recognise that bias occurs. It is everyday. One stark example: two academic studies have been made of the BBC output between the dodgy dossier and the invasion of Iraq. They found 95%/97% of output favoured war. There is no doubt that the media are gunning for Corbyn. He is a threat to the right wing hold over the Labour Party. Keunssberg’s output is better understood as part of this campaign rather than as a problem with the individual. There is a web site which documents the bias of the media. If you want more examples of bias output may I recommend you look through their archives: http://medialens.org/
How this bias is achieved is anoyingly nebulous yet there are identifiable processes. Let me have a stab:
-the narrow demographic of journalists from privileged backgrounds
-the pressure of fitting in to get on
-the reliance on public relations output
-the requirement to not offend advertisers
-the requirement to please the boss (proprietors)
-the faith in government
It’s earlt and I am sure my brief comment does the subject no justice. I hope this makes some sense to you. Check out medialens and search “Chomsky manufacturing consent”.
I should have read this before posting. Sorry, terrible, reptitive comment. I should have been more carful.
But if it could be shown that the BBC, or rather it’s reporters, were biassed but biassed towards centrist politics, biassed for right down the middle of the road, biassed towards the majority viewpoint, biassed against the extremes as which direction they are in, is that such a bad thing? If when they open their post bag there are as many complaints from socialists as capitalists doesn’t that mean the got they balance right?
Fred
“If when they open their post bag there are as many complaints from socialists as capitalists doesn’t that mean the got they balance right?”
Your “socialist and capitalist” and “extremes” perfectly mirrors one of the many processes I didn’t mention. How the media limits what is even discussed by framing the limits of acceptable discourse with the language of fear.
When did you last hear a communist advocate communism on tele? When did you ever hear an anarchist advocate anarchism on the tele? These ideas are considered, if ever at all, in the same breath as “terrorism”.
On a slight veer of tack when did you last hear a socialist advocate socilaism on the tele. I can’t remember. I think I have recently seen some socialists pretending to be liberal social democrats. More often people claiming to be socialists are out and out capitalists. Labels become meanignless execpt as propaganda.
Phil
Never mind the repetition, it was an interesting post.
About not hearing a communist, anarchist, etc on the media: that might be because they are an almost vanished breed, not many ones left (thoughtful and sane ones, anyway). After all, we don’t hear any flat earthers either. The limit of extremes one hears would be – as far as I can see – the anti-vaccination brigade.
Well, how about any anti-capitalist arguments?
They are just never heard. There is all pervasive capitalist propganda everywhere. All oppostion to capitalism is marginalised. This is just accepted as the normal. It goes unrecognised. Business news is all over the media. Where is there a daily radio show dedicated to trade union news?
There is no alternative. That’s what you are told. Script writers no longer waste time on dissenting views. Defence departments shape the movies. All corporate media is shaped to promote corporate values. Greed, and profit. And the acompanying wars and poverty. Capitalism.
There is no alternative. You are so pumped full of the propaganda you don’t think there are any communists or anarchists and those who do remain are insane. Instead of just repeating this bullshit why not engage the arguments? Flat earthers have arguments that can be dismissed in seconds. Communists and anarchists have ideas and theories that have already helped shape our world way beyond what you probably even understand. Child labour? Weekends? Universal suffrage? To equate flat earthers with anarchism and communism is exactly the stupidity that the relentless capitalist propaganda breeds
Would a system where if a given number of people signed a petition a BBC reporter would be sacked improve things any? Would that lead to reporters on the BBC being more communist and anarchist inclined or less?
Fred
No.
That is because anti-capitalists are one of the vanishing breeds I was talking about.
Everyone and all states these days are capitalist and, even if they call themselves something else, in practice function essentially according to the tenets if capitalism..
It is therefore otiose to talk about the MSM “marginalising” anti-capitalists.
Of course all states are capitalists and yes everyone lives in a capitalist world. But to claim everyone is thus pro-capitalist is deluded. This is just more TINA. You are so subsumed in mainstream propaganda you repeatedly make ludicrous claims.
I am surprised that you do not hear communists or anarchists on (or in) the media. The media is almost entirely given over to such people – have you heard of people like George Osborne, Tony Blair, Mark Carney, Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama, Mario Draghi, Angela Merkel, and Hillary Clinton? – they are all examples of the types you claim to be absent from the media.
Loony
No, they are all capitalists.
@ Phil – If the people I named are “all capitalists” perhaps you could enlighten me. Specifically what branch of capitalism deals with printing vast amounts of money and handing it to insolvent institutions. It was my understanding that a central tenant of capitalism relates to creative destruction i.e the exact opposite of current policy.
It is also my understanding that capitalism has a high regard for markets and their consequent price discovery function. No matter how far you look through the historical record you will never find an instance where a free market has priced money at negative rates. Today over $10 trillion of bonds are yielding negative rates. How can this be, unless the markets have been hijacked by a cabal of communists or anarchists?
Hugely enjoying Loony’s commentary here. Which may refer validly to the neocon as being a ‘Trotskyist mugged by reality’ as one of them put it. However, it’s rather difficult for me to see that the means of production, distribution and exchange are in the hands of anyone but speculative financiers, while the masses remain expropriated, and preferably in debt. This model relies on the supply to each according to his credit rating and appropriation from each according to the hedge fund’s need. I don’t think the allegation that Blair is a communist really stands up to scrutiny.
Loony
“…perhaps you could enlighten me. Specifically what branch of capitalism deals with printing vast amounts of money and handing it to insolvent institutions.”
Sure, the capitalism we have. You are mistaking other things for capitalism. The devotion to markets. Redistribution of taxes. These do not define capitalism as I use it. I use yer basic Marxist definition. When the modes are production are in the hands of the few who have capital extracting value from the majority who do not. That type of thing.
Even if you do not accept this definiton of capitalism you are still incorrect. You might, with some little justification, insist the people you list aren’t ‘real’ capitalists (I would say they are) but they certainly are not anarchists or communists.
My bad. I was dissenting from Phil’s view not Loony’s, there. Will one of you please get a distinctive avatar for the benefit of us lazy readers?
Baal
If you now think I was suggesting Blair is a communist you are confused about your confusion.
You are absolutely correct, Phil. My first offering stands. I will now go and liquidate myself.
@ Phil – As its name suggests Capitalism is fundamentally concerned with the accumulation of capital in order to deploy that capital into productive investment. In order to accumulate capital it is necessary to save. Current western central bank policy is explicit – It is to discourage saving. By definition any policy designed to discourage saving is anti-capitalist.
Under capitalism the deployment of capital is guided by market price signals. Again western central bank policy is explicit – it is designed to suppress price signals. Again by definition any policy designed to suppress price signals is anti capitalist.
I agree that the policy is not communist when measured against communist doctrine. However its ultimate outcome is likely to be the same as the ultimate outcome of the various experiments with communism.
If anarchy is defined as “a state of disorder due to the absence or non recognition of authority or other controlling systems” and where authority and controlling systems are embedded in market principles then current policy makers can be legitimately termed anarchists.
Loony
“In order to accumulate capital it is necessary to save…By definition any policy designed to discourage saving is anti-capitalist.”
Well no. It is not at all necessary to save to accumulate capital. In fact spending (investing) is an essential part of accumulating capital. So it is not true to say discouraging saving is anti-capitalist. You might claim hypocrits are discouraging saving but that is entriely different to what you do say. It doesn’t stop them from being capitalists.
“Under capitalism the deployment of capital is guided by market price signals.”
Allegedly. That is the pr, the dream. But just because it isn’t true doesn’t mean it isn’t capitalism.
“However its ultimate outcome is likely to be the same as the ultimate outcome of the various experiments with communism.”
This I agree with. But maybe for different reasons. I in no way accept this (hypocritical) capitalism is communism. I do accept that the experiments with communism have basically quickly become state capitalism.
“If anarchy is defined as “a state of disorder due to the absence or non recognition of authority or other controlling systems” and where authority and controlling systems are embedded in market principles then current policy makers can be legitimately termed anarchists.”
Anarchists are always challenging authority and thus often breaking rules. However that doesn’t mean that anyone breaking rules is an anarchist. An anarchist challenegs rules as part of an ethos that challenges all authority to justify itself as something more than oppression. The capitalists you describe are merely breaking rules to enrich themselves. They are not anarchists.
Loony
Sorry, this time with blockquotes to make it readable.
Well no. It is not at all necessary to save to accumulate capital. In fact spending (investing) is an essential part of accumulating capital. So it is not true to say discouraging saving is anti-capitalist. You might claim hypocrits are discouraging saving but that is entriely different to what you do say. It doesn’t stop them from being capitalists.
Allegedly. That is the pr, the dream. But just because it isn’t true doesn’t mean it isn’t capitalism.
This I agree with. But maybe for different reasons. I do not accept this hypocritical capitalism is communism. I do accept that the experiments with communism have basically quickly become state capitalism.
Anarchists are always challenging authority and thus often breaking rules. However that doesn’t mean that anyone breaking rules is an anarchist. An anarchist challenegs rules as part of an ethos that challeneges all authority to justify itself as something more than oppression. The capitalists you describe are merely breaking rules to enrich themselves.
@ Phil – In order to invest you need something to invest with – and that something is Capital. Capital can only come through savings – either your own or others savings. If your policy is to eradicate savings then your policy is to eradicate capital formation and hence to eradicate Capitalism.
The deployment of capital is clearly guided by market price signals – how else would the UK have stopped investing in canals and redeployed capital to railways? The only reason for investing in anything is because the investor believes that he will earn a rate of return superior to other investment opportunities. This remains true even for public investment – such as public health or law and order. In such cases rewards accrue to society as a whole.
It is calculated that say a public sewerage system results in greater benefits to society than if capital were diverted away from sewerage and redeployed into say astronomy.
The aim of investment is always to earn the optimal return – and this aim remains the same regardless as to whether investment is made by capitalists, socialists, communists, or fascists.
Current policy is to destroy investment opportunities for everyone and to create the conditions whereby the economy becomes a self liquidating entity. Upon reflection I suppose you are correct in that it does not fit well into any known political “ism” Rather it is full blown insanity, that is allowed to flourish thanks to constant media misdirection and the grotesque stupidity of the policy which would strain the credulity of even the most ardent lizard people conspiracy theorist
Loony
No. Saving is not the “only” way to accumulate capital. Capital is more often accumulated through investment. A person can invest all their capital and be a very successful capitalist.
In fact If everyone did “save” capitalism would grind to a halt. This is sort of the problem since 2008 which is why interest rates are so friggin crazy. I recently found this video as a really great explanation of this (start at 52.40):
https://youtu.be/T9Whccunka4?t=52m40s
Current policy is not to destroy investment opportunity to everyone. It is series of attempts to shore up the ineviatable concentration of wealth under capitalism. Maybe even to mitigate the famous contradictions of capitalism.
May I recommend another video from Dr Wolff. I think you may find this a very interesting half hour’s viewing: How capitalism is killing itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P97r9Ci5Kg
Loony
To put the above vids in context. If you are inclined to watch one may I suggest you start with the second: How capiotalism is killing itself. If you do see anything in it them maybe take a look at the second.
Baal and I recently discussed these on the forum here. If you feel like discussing this further perhaps we should move over to therer: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/is-this-really-how-capitalism-is-killing-itself/
Before you go, can I just suggest that a point may be in danger of being overlooked here. Capitalism has evolved beyond the late 1890’s. Power has been recaptured by the financiers, to the detriment of all others. Using future debt for present purchases, they assure themselves an interest income stream on every transaction taking place, frequently to a value greater than the commodity thus mortgaged. This gives them a lien on the producer and consumer which arguably was last seen pre-Industrial Revolution: feudalism. Instead of being the serfs of the landlord and paying tithes to the Church, anyone using any financial facility is now the serf of the bank (your debt becomes its credit, available immediately to it), and paying tithes (interest) to it. Incidentally, because the overall value of the transactions doesn’t actually increase much, this leads to a progressive debasement of the currency, which some call growth.
Baal
I’m just flying by. Moved to forum to be able to continue over next few days.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/is-this-really-how-capitalism-is-killing-itself/#post-33870
What I mean to say is : should the MSM be obliged to give prominence to – or even feature at all – every single point of view on everything, no matter how minority?
There are sufficient outlets for very minority views (eg there is a SWP newspaper, is there not).
The broad centre Fred mentioned is reflected in the MSM, extreme minority views get an airing on the Minority Media; that seems fair enough and even logical.
Would you want the Jehovahs Witnesses on your doorstep every day? Perhaps you would even rather they not call at all.
You seem to misunderstand something, possibly the meaning of the word “minority”
Take for example, the notions of unconstrained money printing and negative interest rates. Only a few short years ago such ideas would have been regarded as beyond the lunatic fringe. Today they are all over the media with space given over to some of the most “respected and educated” commentators to extol the virtue of such policies.
Put simply the MSM have elevated forgery into an intellectual pursuit. It is my contention that the worship of criminality is pretty much a minority view – and yet it is given increasing prominence in the MSM – how can this be?
Hi Phil, many thanks for the reply and the helpful links, much appreciated! ?
No’w’t to do wi’ it except the establishment is so behind the arts it beggars belief. Ukraine won the Eurovision song contest and I happened to catch the winner’s song right at the end. The others must have been abysmal. But the girl seemed quite sweet and seemed no more to believe it than me. For years,probably even before ABBA won it the Eurovision Song Contest had been farcical. Abba at least managed to write some half-decent songs – but the others!
After the Maidan protests, orchestrated by the US, none (or hardly any) of mainstream media reported the war in the Donbas region. Now the US has another puppet regime it will shower it with accolades. By the way Ukraine is the only government to have ever received finance from the IMF during in a civil war – a new and increasingly worrying prospect..
Didn’t the late great Broguean himself say that Eurovision had as much to do with music as jam did to eggs? As I recall, he said so about a decade before he quit over how political it had all become. He wouldn’t be sorry to have missed it this year and no mistake.
I was expecting an outburst of indignation from Mr Goss and I was not dosappointed 🙂
Well there is a surprise – Mr Goss is now denying his hero Stalin deported the Crimean Tatars back in 1944 – he can add that his denial of Stalin’s responsibility for the Holodomor and Katyn. Of course the “girl” believed it – her relatives were among those deported.
As for the result of the song contest being farcical I can only agree – for those actually interested in the songs the Australian one was the clear winner. But it is quite clear that the Russians and other East European states (Bulgaria, Poland and Ukraine to name a few) push their foreign nationals to phone in their votes based upon their political rather than their musical views – the Russian Embassy in the UK does this on a regular basis every year – unfortunately for them their politicisation of a song contest has backfired on them and tto the amusement of everyone apart form the Mr Gosses of this world.
Australia?
That was my reaction too
I just noticed this comment was about to be relegated to the bottom of the last page.
“No’w’t to do wi’ it except the establishment is so behind the arts it beggars belief. Ukraine won the Eurovision song contest and I happened to catch the winner’s song right at the end. The others must have been abysmal. But the girl seemed quite sweet and seemed no more to believe it than me. For years,probably even before ABBA won it the Eurovision Song Contest had been farcical. Abba at least managed to write some half-decent songs – but the others!
After the Maidan protests, orchestrated by the US, none (or hardly any) of mainstream media reported the war in the Donbas region. Now the US has another puppet regime it will shower it with accolades. By the way Ukraine is the only government to have ever received finance from the IMF during in a civil war – a new and increasingly worrying prospect..”
John, most people in the West don’t even know that they should thank their lucky stars that Putin is in power in Russia. In reaction to the aggressive nature of America/NATO, a less sane Russian president would have ordered the missiles to fly by now.
The real lunatics are in Washington, but sadly most people buy into the avalanche of propaganda and don’t understand this.
I agree that there is a reason-shaped hole in the minds of many Britons, which is why this petition had import…most people don’t take/make the time to google Putin’s op-ed articles or speeches, let alone learn any Russian or anything about Russian history, and that is why we need impartial reportage. Not sure that Putin does or is capable of doing anything that another Russian leader wouldn’t though – he has been in place long enough for some real nastiness to happen on his watch, not unlike Hillary Clinton, and his rational pragmatism on the foreign policy front was surely just common sense, as much as the west’s rabid fury made it look like the wisdom of Solomon by comparison.
The latest piece of propaganda garbage from the Guardian with regard to the Nuit Debout movement…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/14/paris-france-protests-labour-reform-francois-hollande
The corporate controlled media are trying to do an ‘Occupy Wall Street’ job on this (ie, kill dissent), but I can tell you as someone who lives in France that these protests are mega and involve people of all ages.
But you poor little dears in the UK aren’t told about it, because you live in a police state run by a bunch of totally corrupt paedophiles.
More bollocks from the Guardian that I can’t even be bothered to dissect…
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/14/france-paris-nuit-debout-protests-may-1968
I see Catherine Bennett of The Observer is now getting in on the ‘sexism’ act, this despite an overwhelming amount of evidence rebuking any such claims about the Petition. As ever, readers Comments are disabled, which demonstrates just how desperate these fuckers are in their propaganda – if they had a leg to stand on, readers would be invited to add their own views. Alas, as with all propaganda, our opinions and fact mean nothing. Still here’s her turgid article, one for the toilet I think: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/14/e-petitions-laura-kuenssberg-bbc-political-editor-female-jeremy-corbyn-38-degrees
“Without the sexist unpleasantness, you gather from Babbs, there was nothing objectionable about helping 35,000, preferably more, people, to gang up on one individual, who happened to be the BBC’s first woman political editor.” (Catherine Bennett)
I looked at the first 100 comments on the petition. Being generous in assigning gender non-specific names to the male side, 36% of the comments were from women. That in itself is enough to demonstrate that this sexism allegation is a load of codswallop. Bennett nonetheless pushes it. Do these pundits never, ever, do any actual work?
JSM,
Its seems more apparent by the day that many of the Women writing for The Guardian/Observer are aligned 100% behind the neoliberalism/neocon philosophy epitomised by their present hero, one Hilary Clinton.
If someone actually is a feminist who actually is concerned for the plight of women not only in the UK, bit globally, the last women you’d put on a pedestal is Clinton.
I now have zero tolerance for these radical Social Justice Warriors who at the end of the day are little more than paid shrills of the Establishment. Indeed, they could not give a toss about the plight of women who have none of the privilege they themselves have, all they are concerned with is an equal opportunity for their class to feed from the trough of corruption.
In my book, anyone who aspires towards Ms. Clinton is pure evil, if only based on how much real blood she has on her hands – evidently the plight of women in countries Ms. Clinton has contributed to laying in ruins is of scant concern to these feminist propagandist who are an insult to women globally. My mother, being of good heart, would never align herself with this scum, her opinion being zero to these buggers because she has no university education and is very much working class, and the working class have greater concerns than these radical neoliberal SJW females have, none of which makes any of their peers lives better, but obviously their own personal bank accounts keep growing. Such is life and such is the reality.
I just did a rough count on names at the end of the list, it doesn’t seem like nearly as many as a third more like a seventh. Do you think maybe when the petition was first launched it was being noticed on a different type of forum then later the demographic shifted?
Oh, blimey. I’ll do the lot and let’s see.
I make it 598 male and 282 female: 68% to 32%. Male will be overstated because whenever I was not sure of a gender I assigned it to male (e.g. “Chris”, or any name I was not familiar with, e.g. Tarik, or just initials. Except “Sam” which I assigned mostly to female). I reckon my figures are fairly accurate. So that is pretty well one-third female.
To get other points on your estimate spectrum, sort names into male M, female F and undecidable U. From those you can calculate the one you’ve done F/(M+U, its opposite M/(F+U) and some more neutral ones.
Thanks, Clark. I am not sure it would change the figures that much. Two-thirds to one-third is accurate enough for me.
@JSM,
Perhaps you and many others have not noticed, but if we review any online access point that allows ‘user’ feedback its clear that a majority are always male, that is males have a greater preponderance to actually comment, which in itself does not make anything ‘sexist’. Of course these realities are easily overlooked, but even on this Blog most posters are male, and as such, given it the Internet and 38 Degrees only exists because of this medium one would expect a preponderance of male signatures – of course, such considerations and such verifiable facts are of little import to Catherine Bennett and her ilk, realities just being brushed aside as they make their propaganda.
Again, I’ll point out all contributors to The Guardian are paid at least double the media average salary, if not in excess of £80,000 plus, this putting them in the top 5% of wage earners in this country. Which is why their crap is but crap, for had they any concern all these SJW’s would have been up in arms at 250 of their working peers being sacked by Guardian Media Group – not one showed solidarity with their laid-off per, which is why they are scum, more interested in their own pockets than the principles they profess to push. Typical fucking BLiarites in my humble opinion.
I had noticed. More male online users; more male signatories. More male commenters. One third female is pretty good going and can hardly be argued as sexist, although a feminist position might argue some at least of such female commenters are reflecting a patriarchal set up. Also, how many of the male signers and commenters have signed because she’s a woman? More likely to go the other way in my view.
Bennett is an idiot. How these people get to be hacks is beyond me.
JSM,
As the old saying goes: ‘Never let facts get in the way of a good story’, and most of these Female and Male Guardian types make excellent ‘fiction’ writers, regrettably they are not very good at ‘non-fiction’. Still, even by stating this we will be labelled ‘sexist’, homophobic and the rest, which is strange given the political spectrum most of us inhabit.
Sorry, correction required on my 12:31 comment. Someone else can do it if no one has already.
Chris Rogers
“that is males have a greater preponderance to actually comment, which in itself does not make anything ‘sexist’.”
Your use of “preponderance” merely repeats that males do it more. If this domination of comments is not patriarchal and sexism, what is it?
Perhaps women simply have better things to do.
Craig,
Thank you (and others) very much for the work you have done on this story and especially your word analysis of the content of the petition which was taken down.
I have been looking through news reports and opinion articles about the story and I have found 25 different articles about it in 14 different publications and I believe that only one of them (the earliest which is an opinion article by James Kirkup in The Telegraph) contains any verifiable evidence of the abuse they claim (and that is a screenshot of a tweet calling Laura Kuenssberg a “bitch” which was posted by a woman which is genuine). Here are links to them (in what I hope is reverse chronological order) so you can read them for yourself and see if you can see any more evidence:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/14/e-petitions-laura-kuenssberg-bbc-political-editor-female-jeremy-corbyn-38-degrees
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3583252/Campaign-sack-BBC-political-editor-Laura-Kuenssberg-scrapped-sexist-abuse.html
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/7144588/PM-condemns-sexist-bullying-of-BBC-editor.html
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/11/the-guardian-view-on-sex-abuse-lessons-from-home-and-abroad
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/11/the-laura-kuenssberg-petition-should-be-condemned-not-just-removed
http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2016/05/11/pmqs-telford-mp-lucy-allan-speaks-out-against-online-bullying-and-harassment/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/laura-kuenssberg-sexist-online-campaign-david-cameron-condemns-misogynist-bullying-on-social-media-a7024391.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/11/david-cameron-says-people-should-be-ashamed-by-the-sexist-bullyi/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bullying-row-tory-mp-lucy-7945855
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/laura-kuenssberg-defended-against-sexist-bullying-by-david-cameron_uk_5733225ce4b0ade291a2c889
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/11/pm-hits-out-at-sexist-online-bullying-after-bbc-laura-kuenssberg-faces-hate-campaign
http://www.itv.com/news/2016-05-11/david-cameron-condemns-sexist-petition-against-bbc-journalist-laura-kuenssberg/
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/11/laura-kuenssberg-petition-sexist-bullies-38-degrees
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/7142141/BBC-Laura-Kuenssberg-petition-taken-down-over-vile-sexist-abuse-from-Labour-activists.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/petition-sack-bbc-political-editor-7942031
http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/news/a793647/petition-against-bbcs-laura-kuenssberg-is-taken-down-after-drawing-sexist-abuse/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/laura-kuenssberg-petition-calling-for-bbc-political-editor-to-be-sacked-removed-over-misogynist-a7022681.html
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/petition-to-sack-bbc-political-editor-removed-after-abuse-from-sexist-trolls-a3244751.html
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2016/05/why-do-people-hate-laura-kuenssberg-so-much
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/05/10/petition-calling-bbc-sack-laura-kuenssberg-pulled-following-abuse-sexist-trolls
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/10/petition-to-sack-laura-kuenssberg-removed-after-sexist-and-hatef/
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/petition-to-sack-laura-kuenssberg-pulled-by-its-creator-for-being-hijacked-by-sexist-trolls_uk_5731d2b6e4b0e6da49a6e56b
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/10/laura-kuenssberg-petition-sexist-abuse-38-degrees-bbc
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/10/bbc-laura-kuenssberg-jeremy-corbyn-petition
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/10/bbc-laura-kuenssberg-jeremy-corbyn-petition
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/09/jeremy-corbyns-supporters-want-a-kinder-politics-but-they-shame/
If you look through the list you may notice that six of the articles were published by The Guardian (with another one in The Observer and therefore on The Guardian’s website) and they include two of the first three articles to be published. Like the Tim Hunt story, The Guardian has taken a minor incident with very little evidence to prove the claims made and turned it into a national news story on which to base opinion articles containing falsehoods.
Thank you again, Craig.
I just wanted to acknowledge this, EGR, because it’s a terrific piece of work and must have taken a lot of effort. Please hang on to it – it might be useful. Thank you.
More bullshit from the Guardian,
The online petition to sack the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg was objectionable, even before sexist trolls joined in
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/14/e-petitions-laura-kuenssberg-bbc-political-editor-female-jeremy-corbyn-38-degrees
And so it is. McCarthyite and immoral to call for the sacking of an individual via the Parliamentary petitions procedure.
Which is what I said a day or so ago on here.
*************************
Disclaimer: I have no connection with The Guardian and am not a Guardian reader.
Well, Habbs, if it was me I’d be calling for the erection of a gallows or guillotine , but I am a little on the radical side myself!
Chris.
Oh I wouldn’t call you radical, more like justified . ?
Habb.
We all know what your real connections are, and why you inhabit this particular blog. As you yourself once openly said to Clark.
“I’m keeping my vigilant eye in CM’s blog.”
Vigilant eye for whom? We already have a good idea.
And don’t forget that it was Captain Ahabakkuk who opined, not very long ago, that Craig should close down the comments on his blog. Thus making it clear that it is public opinion to which he objects. He would far rather that it was left to the ‘elect’ in our congregation, the rich and the powrfful to impose their views on the great unwashed.
You would be right, “Bevin” – except that the vast majority of the commenters on here do not represent “public opinion”.
Far from it, in fact. Very, very far.
The “great unwashed” – as you snobbishly choose to call them – have a much greater grasp of reality, honestly and morality than the miniscule minority “represented” by hysterics like yourself.
*********************
PS – have you looked at the Wikileaks cables on President Tenner yet? Any quotes coming our way? 🙂
>> the vast majority of the commenters on here do not represent “public opinion”. Far from it, in fact. Very, very far.
Habbakkuk, since you are a stickler for evidence-based comments (Wikileaks cables etc etc), could you direct me to the steaming pile of evidence that backs up your far distant representation of public opinion?
It hardly seems objectionable to me that licence fee payers express their alarm that a great deal of their money is being spent on such a grotesquely inept journalist and suggest the BBC gets better value for money by hiring someone actually qualified for the job. I think sacking is going a bit far though: perhaps she could be moved to post in the BBC where she might be better suited eg in the canteen.
Yes, perfect. The canteen would seem a perfectly reasonable settlement.
MJ – So grossly inept and biased that Seumas Milne approached her for advice when taking his post as Jeremy Corbyn’s communications boss?
Perfectly unsurprising that one propagandist, in fact a genocide denying Stalinist propagandist, should consult another.
Ha ha! I didn’t know Milne was one of the black pyjamas faction. They blow my mind…I heard Diane Abbott chortling heartily in Andrew Neil’s Daily Politics a while back (around the time of John McDonnells Mao Little Red Book jest), when the mass starvations were mentioned. She dismissed millions of deaths breezily with a laugh as part of the grand ultimate success of the revolution. Absolutely chilling. Reminded me of Hannah Arendt and the ‘banality of evil’.
Jim
I might be being unfair. To be clear he certainly used to be a genocide denying Stalinist. Maybe he’s changed his ways.
https://shirazsocialist.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/seamas-milne-on-stalins-missing-millions/
I do agree that Keunssberg is not inept. She and Milne have both excelled to rise to the top of their profession as propagandists.
Ms. Bennett, Ms. Hinsliff and the other gaggle of SWJ Feminists parading their reactionary wares at The Guardian would claim you are being sexist for that comment. Fact is, most of these types would not last a day in a canteen, never mind a tuck shop in an infant school.
That should be SJW (Social Justice Warriors)
France denies turning to controversial Israeli general for security advice.
The general in question is said to have had a leading role in the 2006 invasion of Lebanon. Human Rights Watch, claimed the invasion was peppered with war crimes.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/has-israeli-war-criminal-played-lead-role-cannes-security?utm_source=EI+readers&utm_campaign=7d23a436fe-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e802a7602d-7d23a436fe-299185473
https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/08/02/israel/lebanon-end-indiscriminate-strikes-civilians
Was it “France” which turned to the Israeli General for security advice or was it the organisers of the Cannes Film Festival?
Urgent request to Ros: please read your own link (just for once) and report back to us.
You might also consider correcting the first line of your post, thanks in advance.
That Israeli invasion of Lebanon was a debacle for the Israeli military. In fact, those war crimes may have been the result of fury over the failure.
Participation in that failure is no feather in any general’s cap.
And the failure was in particular an intelligence failure. Hezbollah was reading the Israelis’ communications, and was thus able to anticipate their every move.
Not exactly ideal security. Do the French know this?
Lysais.
In my opinion the French authorities are well aware of that particular generals past, Cannes film festival is a star studded occasion, littered with actors and actresses who are ardent supporters of FOI.
It makes sense then to have such an infamous general run over their security plans. What other non affiliated people around the world think of it god only knows.
It’s akin to Jack the Ripper, advising the London Met police on how to protect ladies of the night, it’s utterly bizarre.
I whistle and the North American (allegedly) jackal emerges from the undergrowth…..
Lysais.
Indeed it was, a bloody one at that, is it any wonder that HRW, would love to throw the book at Israel, for their neferious action in Lebanon.
Speaking of intelligence failures, today’s Washington Post has a front-page article on Unit 8200, the Israeli counterpart of NSA and GCHQ, and a new facility it is constructing in the Negev Desert near Beersheba (and thus also near the nuclear facility at Dimona). The article discusses the joint Israeli-U.S. operation Olympic Games and the Stuxnet virus that disabled parts of the Iranian nuclear program. As soon as I read about Stuxnet, I concluded it was a strategic blunder of the first order, as we should be the last ones to give other countries the idea of launching cyberattacks, as our dependence on cybersystems is greater. It was as if, round about 1900, the Royal Navy had started building lots of submarines.
And sure enough, the WaPo article says Stuxnet showed the world what cyberattacks could do and led many countries to set up cyber-commands.
All so that Israel could maintain its regional nuclear monopoly, even against what was probably a fictional threat that Iran would acquire nuclear weapons.
Lysais.
“All so that Israel could maintain its regional nuclear monopoly, even against what was probably a fictional threat that Iran would acquire nuclear weapons”
___________
But, but surely Israel doesn’t posses nuclear weapons, (says I tongue firmly pressed in cheek) I mean they’d have signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty if they had.
Israel’s nukes are the worst kept secret in the region thanks to Mordechai Vanunu.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu
“…as we should be the last ones to give other countries the idea of launching cyberattacks, as our dependence on cybersystems is greater. It was as if, round about 1900, the Royal Navy had started building lots of submarines.”
_____________________
As you point out, the Royal Navy didn’t start building lots of submarines round about 1900 – but that didn’t stop the Germans from doing so subsequently and earlier than the British.
Which destroys your analogy, doesn’t it.
Germany started WWI with only 48 submarines in service or under construction. She had concentrated in the preceding decades on building battleships, which turned out in the end to have little military effect, beyond that of pushing Britain into the anti-German alliance.
“Lysias” (16h58)
And how many submarines did Britain start WW1 with?
(you’re a slippery one, aren’t you 🙂 )
Here is the WaPo artiicle: How Israel is turning part of the Negev Desert into a cyber-city:
“The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has called on the UN to implement a resolution adopted in 1948 giving Palestinian refugees the right to return to the occupied territories as they are gearing up to commemorate the 68th anniversary of Nakba Day (the Day of Catastrophe).”
“PLO’s legislative body, the Palestinian National Council (PNC), said in a statement released on Saturday that all refugees must be entitled to the right to come back to their homes as stipulated in the General Assembly Resolution 194, emphasizing that the right is non-negotiable and can never be compromised.”
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/05/15/465656/Palestinian-National-Council-resolution-UN-right-of-return-occupied-lands-Nakba-Day
I for one am in complete agreement with Palestinian people, they must be allowed to return home.
A General Assembly Resolution? Hundreds of them every year, worth nada, squit, bubkis.
Calm down, dear.
Hasbara cock
Nada, Squit and Bubkis
Are these the names of the 3 bikinied off-duty IDF bimbos Habba caught a glimpse of on Tel Aviv beach last year?
Having asked them to sign the hospital plaster on his penis bone, made excuses, dears, in other circumcisions, I mean circumstances, I would oblige but I have been sent from the UK for convalescence here.
Once more, the scofflaw attitude of Israel and its defenders is on display for all to see.
Lysais.
Yes our resident blog overlord (for whom?) Doesn’t like his beloved Israel pictured in a less than favourable light.
RoS
Anything from the Wikileaks cables yet on President Tenner?
And don’t forget to read your link on the Israeli general/Cannes and report back.
Not for all, my Transatlantic Friend – just for that miniscule minority represented by good people like yourself.
That’s minuscule wahhabakkuk.
This might interest you and Trolls of all ages and inclinations. It touches on Brazil and-shock!! horror!!- it includes a lengthy quotation from the Ukrainian farmer’s son who came to call himself Leon Trotsky.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/05/organized-misery-is-fascism/#more-62633
I’d also be interested on learning the (nasty) party line on Boris’s breach of good manners in pointing out that there have been several previous attempts to create a European Union without democratic rule, one of them quite recent.
“Bevin” – you seem to have limitless time to post on every subject under the sun but no time to read the relevant Wikileaks cables and quote us a few lines which might serve to justify the assertion that Brazilian President Tenner is a “puppet” of the USA.
I interpret your failure to do so as an indication that you concede that RoS was talking bollocks.
That’s a great read from Stanton in your link Bevin, cheers.
Habbabkuk,
Perhaps if you crawled from under your rock and cast your net further afield than Wikileaks, Wiki, or this website, plenty exists on US-based Blogs detailing that the interim new leader of Brazil is a pawn of the USA.
Of course, such a move would involve actually doing a little nosing around on other sites, which may annoy your sensibilities and cause moral outrage – the African-American Blogs are great on all this stuff, as is Naked Capitalism, which has many links on this topic of discussion – why don’t you go and look and then slag off all posters on these particular sites – you’d be eviscerated for your views, but that’s another matter.
Mr “Rogers”
I’m not interested in “other blogs”. I am interested in what the Wikileaks cables – cited by RoS and “Bevin” – have to say in support of the assertion made by said RoS and “Bevin” that President Tenner is/was a “puppet”.
Perhaps you could help to find the relevant quotes since RoS and “Bevin” seem unable to do so?
Habbabkuk,
‘The Truth is Out There’ but somehow it just passes you by, must really be lonely inhabiting all these neoliberal/neocon websites you seem to adore, and yet much action takes place on actual ‘radical’ websites and news services out in the big yonder known as the World Wide Web – take it your support your Tory friend’s latest wheeze on closing down dialogue by accusing all of being extremists. Well, I’m proud to be a bloody extremist if it means supporting freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Fuck em is all I can say and I really mean it.
Oh, Tony, see that Hillary is suggesting she will investigate UFOs if she is elected POTUS, so be sure to help get out the vote for her – what her husband looked into when he was POTUS but found nothing.
Perhaps, the inquiry would find the aliens in that UFO which flew over your house!
(Let’s face it, the world has simply gone nuts!)
Do you think Hillary will investigate her missing 20,000 e-mails?
I understand that Mr. Putin has copies so perhaps he could help out in any investigation.
The missing e-mail are just another hoax, like Whitewater, which the rabid Republicans have fallen for.
Whitewater was about the only thing one couldn’t get the Clintons for.
They were afraid of Bubba’s helping Iran-Contra, starting with its use of the airport at Mena, followed by the suicide of bagman Vince Foster, and culminating in Travelgate.
If they was a smoking gun now, Director Comey, no friend of the Clintons, would not stop any prosecutions.
Here Hillary was fooled by DCI David Betrayus, and was trying to cover up for him.
Just read what she wrote about him.
“Over 30,000 people within two days had signed an old languishing petition against the Tory bias of Laura Kuenssberg”
But it goes beyond bias. It was Ms. Kuenssberg who ” … had sealed the deal: the shadow foreign minister Stephen Doughty would resign live in the studio.’ (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcA3hmX5V3g ).
i.e. Ms. Kuenssberg was making the news, not reporting the news. The on-air resignation went out shortly before that day’s PMQs.
As a daily politics big wig put it “we knew his resignation just before PMQs would be a dramatic moment with big political impact.We took the presenters aside to brief them on the interview while our colleagues on the news desk arranged for a camera crew to film him and Laura arriving in the studio for the TV news packages.”
I think Richard Seymour’s article at http://www.leninology.co.uk/ sums up the right approach.
The BBC is part of the establishment. Mr. Seymour makes a point about ‘peak Marr’ in relation to Andrew Marr and comments that ” It would not be difficult to find examples of other occasions on which correspondents have stated as fact grossly partisan political judgments.”
I think he underestimates the role the BBC plays in shaping political events. I vaguely remember the BBC going all gaga when the 1976 currency crisis led to Dennis Healey accepting an IMF loan and the concomitant acceptance that unemployment would have to rise and that cuts to the welfare state would also be required as a quid pro quo for the loan. The BBC were part of the media pack which in effect led to the then Callaghan government introducing neoliberalism into the UK.
The point for me being that the BBC’s job is to defend the establishment. That is part of Ms. Kuenssberg’s remit. I hardly think you can sack her for doing her job. If a viewer/listener believes that the BBC ought to be fair/impartial/balanced etc. then report after report should have made clear that this isn’t the case and never will be.
In the 84/85’s miners strike there was a notorious piece of footage where “They [the miners] complained that the BBC had reversed footage, to show miners who threw missiles seemingly before the police charge rather than in retaliation for it.”. This was at Orgreave.
FranzB,
What many seem to forget when undertaking a comparative study of timelines with regards our terrestrial TV, and indeed print media, is the little fact that the Internet was only in its infancy in the early 90s and only took off as we know it today during our new millennium, as such, biased or not, consumers could not really highlight certain bias’s apart from the odd letter, or perhaps one of the more honest current affairs producers making a programme focusing on these issues. Indeed, UK newspapers have always been notoriously biased, which is why many readers purchased particular brands to reinforce their own bias’s, such as The Guardian being Liberal, with The Mail and Torygraph being Tory.
Obviously the BBC, as the Establishment channel is expected to tow a certain line, and always has been from its inception, however, today we are not only able to see more flagrant abuses, but congregate online to discuss them – the 38 Degree Petition being a product of this ‘Brave New World’, which is why the authorities globally would love to close it down, or at least ensure outspoken citizens and critics are labelled as extremists.
Further, at least certain University Departments kept an eye on media output, and indeed reported on bias and abuses, but these reports only reached a few persons or groups.
Not so today, we can Twitter, Facebook or identify abuse on Blog’s like CM’s and organise, the 38 Degree Petition being an example of organisation. And by the MSM print media about the Petition, we can see we really have touched a raw nerve, hence their desire to label the Petition ‘sexist’ and have it closed down.
But yes, the media’s job is not to threaten the Status Quo, as we have seen whenever a Labour government that’s in power, usually the MSM were opposed to it, or in the case of Corbyn, the MSM want him removed as he is perceived as a real challenge to their cozy world, despite being a democratic socialist who’s not preaching revolution. Fact is, such is their hubris that even minor change is now deemed dangerous and as such, needs to be stamped out for fear of catching on.
I rarely see the university analysis of media bias, I think perhaps the state funding to universities might trump blue-sky research into propaganda,
Meanwhile on the Internet twitterati as disclosure moyen of deep state plots, I noticed during the euro-pop event yesterday that Twitter & eu voters seemed to overwhelmingly rank the spectacular Russian song highest, whilst the “cleared & on-message broadcast professionals” juries of the ebu states swayed the winner instead to be a passionate, yet uninteresting, political song from a bankrupt thrall state. The snapchat teens haven’t yet revealed the extent of the intelligence-led partner super-state bias necessary to get this result. As I say, I do miss real academic research in the deep super-state!
Thank you, FranzB. Orgreave repays analysis.
I do not have the precise account to hand at the moment, so please take my account as needing verification, but I believe that the reversal of footage (which was more than just a “complaint”: it was demonstrated in court to be the truth of the matter) came to light during the prosecution of scores of striking miners for riot and similar charges. Michael Mansfield QC demanded the footage, and it was then discovered that the picketing at Orgreave was largely peaceful until the police deliberately charged the striking miners, including with horses, whereupon the miners retaliated by throwing stones and other missiles, and were then charged again, chased, dispersed and in many cases cruelly assaulted and beaten.
The trials of the striking miners collapsed, and later South Yorkshire Police paid hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation to scores of miners for malicious prosecution and assault, among other charges. I do not remember (although I could be mistaken) these matters making headline news at the time, unlike Thatcher’s denunciations of the “enemy within”, dozens of opinion pieces denouncing the striking miners as bully boys, yadda yadda yadda.
None of this would have come to light if courageous defence lawyers had not pursued the truth with utter determination. The BBC’s falsifications would still have stood, and Orgreave would be remembered as a triumph of the democratic British state against a violent and insurrectionary trade union movement.
Thanks.
Slightly off topic maybe, but the UK political and media circus reaches new previously unscaleable heights.
Now according to that vile tory rag Boris is praying Herr Schickelgruber in aid of his barmy brexit baloney.
– Brexit Tories back Boris Johnson, saying his EU Nazi Germany comparison was ‘historical analysis’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/15/brexit-tories-back-boris-johnson-saying-his-eunazi-germany-compa/
I really do wonder why those self same erudite Tory gentlemen didn’t leap to the aid of our Ken in his hour of need!?
More to the point of that will Ms Kuenssberg being doing a hatchet job on Boris????
.
.
Some interesting background info on the JFK assassination not generally discussed in mainstream media sources. Excerpt below from SIRHAN SIRHAN and the mystery of Islamic synthetic terror:
by Laurent Guyénot
Both murders (i.e. of JFK and his brother RFK /Silvio) have at least two things in common: Johnson and Israel. First, consider the fact that they precisely frame the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, who controlled both investigations: Johnson became president the day of John’s death, and he retired a few months after Robert’s death. As for Israel’s implication, it is the plot to blame an anti-Israel Palestinian, which gives it away in Robert’s case. In John’s case, Israel’s fingerprint is even more unmistakable, and one must wonder why most investigators make so much effort not to see it. By a strange paradox, those who do not believe in Oswald’s guilt nevertheless try to find the culprit by scrutinizing Oswald’s weird biography. It is like trying to solve 9/11 by studying Osama bin Laden’s life. The obvious track to follow is rather that of the man who silenced Oswald, making sure he would not repeat in a court hearing what he had managed to tell journalists in a Police station corridor: “I’m just a patsy!” Oswald’s murderer is Jacob Leon Rubenstein: he is the only real murderer caught in relation to the Dallas assassination plot. Yet his trail seems to be “the road less travelled.” Hardly anybody has ever heard his full name, for he is simply called Jack Ruby — which sounds conveniently Italian for a mobster, as he is sometimes depicted. And who has ever read that Ruby confessed separately to his rabbi (Hillel Silverman) and to his lawyer (William Kunstler): “I did it for the Jews!”[16] Jack Ruby was intimately connected to the Jewish mafia — the Mishpucka (“Family” in Hebrew), also known as the “Yiddish Connection”. As Gail Raven, a former girlfriend of Ruby and nightclub dancer in his Carousel Club, once said: “He had no choice. […] Jack had bosses, just like everyone else.”[17]. Jack Ruby’s boss and mentor was Hollywood mobster Mickey Cohen, successor to Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegelbaum, head of Murder Incorporated. Cohen became infatuated with the Zionist cause after World War II, as he explained in his memoirs: “Now I got so engrossed with Israel that I actually pushed aside a lot of my activities and done nothing but what was involved with this Irgun war”; what kept him so busy was mostly stealing WWII American surplus weapons for Israel.[18] Mickey Cohen “spent a lot of time” with Menahem Begin, the former Irgun chief, according to Gary Wean, former detective sergeant for the Los Angeles Police Department.[19]
The only thing missing from that screed is a mention of whether there was an eclipse of the sun within 6 months of either assassination; 🙂
Or even an ecilpse of the moon.
Silvio
Do you believe – like our Transatlantic Friend “Lysias” – that former President Johnson and Israel had anything to do with the ousting of President Nixon as well?
If not,why not?
Utter rubbish.
The assassinations of the 1960s were directed by the CIA’s wildman William King Harvey who wanted to get back at the hated Kennedys, and keep them down for denying Trick Dick Nixon the Presidency in 1960.
Harvey’s favored mode of killing was getting Manchurian Candidated like James Earl Ray, and Sirhan Sihran to be the flallguys for Mafia hitmen.
And Momo’s hitmen, Richard Cain an Chuckie Nicoletti, who killed JFK, were murdered too for speaking out too candidly about their involvement in them.
Israel had nothing to do with these domestic assassinations.
Concur,
Israel was of little import to the USA until after the 1973 War, after which the US military decided it would make a reliable ally in the Middle East. Please note my emphasis is on the US Military, and not DC political machine.
Israel was important enough for Lyndon Johnson to ignore the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967.
I have never said that I believe Lyndon Johnson had anything to do with Watergate or the removal of Nixon from the presidency. In fact, I do not believe that, and am unaware of any evidence suggesting it.
Right, Nixon removed LBJ from this world by having his physician poison the former President on the way back to Texas on Air Force One right after Tricky Dick’s re-inaugural in January 1973.
And one thought banana republics were bad.
You posted to that effect a few days ago.
Alzheimers or an inability to tell the truth?
Correction – mea culpa.
You claimed that the US military and CIA git Nixon out of the White House.
You said that in connection with your claim that both Kennedy brothers were assassinated as part of a conspiracy.
You appear to like conspiracies.
Right, I do think that the US military, especially General Al’ Deep Throat’ Haig, and DCI Richard Helms got rid of Nixon.
Haig because he didn’t like Nixon having The Plumbers, led by Harvey, shoot up Governor Wallace to make sure he stayed in the White House, and Helms didn’t like Nixon trying to pin the Watergate break-in on the Agency.
And I am only interested in investigating real conspiracies because they often happen, and are too rarely properly checked out.
Yes, LBJ died on Jan. 22, 1973, right around the time of Nixon’s second inaugural, months before Nixon was forced from office. And according to one of his lawyers, LBJ was in very bad health and a mental case in his last years.
I like to speculate about conspiracies for which there is historical evidence. As someone with a degree in Greats from Oxford and a Ph.D. in Classics (concentrating on ancient history) from an American university, I know history is full of conspiracies.
If you’re interested in the subject, just watch I Claudius. Or, in more modern territory, the British House of Cards. (The American version is a sad degeneration of the original, above all because they couldn’t let the protagonist and his wife be unadulterated villains.)
Glenn Greenwald lives in Brazil and is well acquainted with the political scene in that country. Here’s his latest piece on yet another American coup d’etat…
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/11/brazils-democracy-to-suffer-grievous-blow-today-as-unelectable-corrupt-neoliberal-is-installed/
And here’s a list of countries since the Second World War where the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the government (it’s a long list)…
http://www.globalresearch.ca/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list-of-u-s-regime-changes/5400829
Muslims kill Muslims
Any thought from anyone about the death of the Hezbollah second-in -command during a shelling attack by (according to Hezbollah) Sunni extremists?
No conspiracy theories, please.
Nothing new https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karbala
Christians kill Christians (see WW1 and WW2). Hindus kill Hindus, etc, etc.
I fail to see what your point is, beyond naked hatred and racism.
I was at a funeral recently in south east England. The person being sent off was very racist. There were speeches given during the funeral service. The only thing the congregation didn’t do was give a Nazi salute.
I thought, is this what my country has come to.
God help us.
WW1 was called the ‘last’ great war.
WW3 really will be the final war, because there’ll be nothing left of the planet Earth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28z5aTiN4UI
And Buddhists kill Muslims (Burma) and Muslims kill Christians (Pakistan) and Arabs kill Jews (Paris and Israel).
Why, even you talk of killing some of us “vermin” when the great day comes.
Have you started on the vino yet?
The ‘terror attacks’ in Paris last November (on Friday 13th) were yet another quite blatant false flag, to further the war agenda in the Middle East. Any egit who looks beyond the crap spouted by the presstitutes will be able to see this.
If you have any understanding of the history of this world you will know that there’s no such thing as ‘conspiracy theorists’. Instead there are complete idiots who swallow government propaganda hook line and sinker.
“Over the top, lads. It’s for King and Country”.
RobG.
I’d say the false flag, was primarily to impose stricter laws on the French public whilst demonising the Muslim population.
London and Belgium also provided similar events.
I just watched the Italian movie Il Divo, about Giulio Andreotti. It has quite a lot to say about the “strategy of tension” [strategia della tensione].
“No conspiracy theories?”
If there was not a conspiracy to kill him it must have been, either, an accident or, that old favourite, a lone gunman.
Clearly the theory, which you proffer, that it was a deliberate killing by ‘sunni extremists’ suggests a conspiracy.
Or do you feel that it was a mistake, Habbajobtodo?
The Angry Arab, who knows what he is talking about, has no doubt that the culprit was Israel. And that Hezbollah refrains from saying so for operational or political reasons. But then that, like most acts carried out by an organisation, would be a conspiracy. And all who believe in it are. by definition, conspira-loons.
Anyone wishing to illustrate the adage regarding the pot calling the kettle black might want to draw attention to the troleen’s latest:
“Bevin” – you seem to have limitless time to post on every subject under the sun..”
Re Brazil Gwynne Dyer has wise words:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/05/14/brazil-impeachment-brings-mind-thailands-2014-military-coup
Be warned, though, a conspiracy is suggested
There’s an article in today’s WashingtonPost that speculates that Hezbollah is blaming Sunni extremists because it does not want to retaliate against Israel at the moment
I kne someone would come out with that one pretty quickly.
Very predictable.
I knew someone would come out with that one pretty quickly.
Very predictable.
Here it is. Washington Post: Hezbollah blames top commander’s death on Sunni extremists:
Well done mate. Good response, well balanced and right on the mark. It’s clear that not only the BBC but the whole establishment machine is always gearing towards defense of the status quo. Whether it is #Indyref or Brexit, the establishment wants nothing to change. Change is always dangerous – markets get the jitters, so it threatens the ‘have’s’ and end up in redistribution of power, wealth or whatever. Hard to expect anything else, but no reason not to shout it from the rafters. Keep shouting.
Muslims kill Muslims
That’s a moot point because technically the killing of another Muslim by a Muslim is an act of Kufr/Disbelief.
If as Muslim has decided that another Muslim isn’t a Muslim by Muslim Brotherhood ( British deviance ) or Wahhabi ( British deviance ) takfirism then technically speaking, I know it’s hard for Habba’s brain-washed brain to find the spare braincells to understand , if they decided he/she was not a Muslim and in fact they were, l that is in itself an act of Kufr/ disbelief.
The event referred to here sounds to me like two non-Muslims, either infiltrated and instructed by or themselves infiltrators into and instructing non-Muslim organisations to cold-blooded murder.
The only reason why Muslims and non-Muslims are fighting USUKIS’s Al Qaida together is that USUKIS is obviously a greater enemy than Assad. Once the distraction of USUKIS terror has been extinguished, then we can turn to the lesser dictator.
Israel sits on the small stretch of land between the Mediterrranean ( Africa Europe Turkey Russia ) and the Persian Gulf (India China, Australia the Far East.
The reason God gave the Children of Israel His religion of Tawheed/ Monotheism is so that they could spreads it to all of the countries/continenjts mentioned above.
But when instead the chosen people acquired the idols, superstitions and black magic of all those different nations in order to lubricate the wealth of trade created by traversing their little tract of land, God withdrew His favour.
If your local pub becomes a denizen of vice, it’s likelly to get boarded up by the police.
And yes the criminals will do everything they can to get it back open again.
Darlings.
Dear fellow readers of this Blog, it is well worth reading Media Len’s April 8 post on Sanders, which touches heavily on media censorship and media bias, it’s a decent read and one that fits the narrative build up on this blog over the past three weeks: http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2016/816-last-chance-president.html
Apparently the University of Birmingham Students Union is a Zionist outpost.
Birmingham has the highest population of Muslims in Europe, so I think Birmingham could cope with a Zionist minority in a minute section of society temporarily living here. There are several synagogues, for the religiously minded, in fact I never heard of any political voice of Zionism being aired here.
There’ve been voices in the council against companies like Veoilia who have contracts in Israel but Veoilia lorries seem to be everywhere.
As I see it, Israel is a colonial projection of Western power onto a strategic piece of land.
All of the last 30 years of war against Muslim countries has been about preserving that connecting piece of land. On a basis that has much less validity than the little baby atolls made by China.
Motes/ beams/ planks in eyes, whatever you like to call them.
De Gaulle made a similar point, warning Israelis that the future they faced is that of the colons in Algeria. Of course it might have been like that of the Afrikaaners in South Africa where pretty well all their privileges were preserved in a deal with the ANC that, in my opinion, is not likely to last very much longer.
In any case the colonials in Palestine might consider the inadvisability of using every opportunity to kill Palestinian children (20 in the last few months according to UNICEF).
Giyane has anyone done a rough calculation of the casualties run up in this rolling holocaust of muslims? It must be almost in the double digit million range by now.
I meant to include this illustration of the last days of Palestine, when Britain was giving up the ghost of its mandate (and tossing the people it had promised to protect and lead to self-government in with it.)
http://angryarab.blogspot.ca/2016/05/this-is-how-zionists-uprooted.html
This is an alert for all feminists; the new Brazilian cabinet is very undiversified: All male, all white, all puppets.
The Guardian and the Beeb seem to have missed the story.
http://sputniknews.com/latam/20160515/1039652767/brazil-cabinet-rousseff-impeachment.html
More on Brazil, from a Socialist point of view. Expect this guy to be interviewed on TV very soon:
http://www.countercurrents.org/auken130516.htm
The Franco-German TV channel “ARTE” is doing a programme called “La Fin des chrétiens d’Orient” on Tuesday (20h55 CET).
Apparently one in four of the people living in the Middle East (this would include Turkey, of course) was Christian at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Today there are 11 million Christians living amoung 320 million Muslims.
Would anyone on here like to claim that this is a “slow genocide”, I wonder?
This is a photofit image of Habbabkuk:
receding forehead, very little evidence of empathy here
heavy lidded eyes, obsessed with Israeli bimbos
fixed mouth, obstinate refusal to engage with reality
bald, resignation to loss of intellectual capacity.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Simpsons+Characters&view=detailv2&&id=8E975B553907B9026275F22DF45A2897FFA4A87E&selectedIndex=14&ccid=My6bmVpG&simid=608032482367438862&thid=OIP.M332e9b995a46eed46876961fca22eac8H0
Mods. Just checking to see if you’re there.