Nathan Robinson lost his employment as a Guardian columnist on US politics for these tweets:
They were, according to the editor of Guardian US John Mulholland, “clearly antisemitic”. Criticising US military aid to Israel, according to Mulholland, was tantamount to arguing that Israel controls the United States.
This kind of circular reasoning, by which all criticism of Israel is anti-semitic so any criticism of military support to Israel is anti-semitic, is evidently invalid. But this tells you a great deal about how the Guardian now operates, in addition to it being the main media conduit for the UK security services. But actually, the part of Mr Robinson’s narrative I found most enlightening about his employment by the Guardian was:
I only had a column spiked for content reasons once, as far as I can remember, which occurred when I criticized Joe Biden over Hunter Biden’s corrupt business ties.
That tells you everything about the massive hypocrisy of the so-called “liberal” media, which actually is anything but liberal. The fact that the Biden administration has decided to pursue the prosecution of Julian Assange confirms that the people are getting the same slops, in a different bucket.
The lack of media interest in the fact that Hunter Biden was receiving $720,000 a year, plus a one off $850,000, from a Ukrainian company he never visited nor did any identifiable work for, was not just laziness. They were actually spiking the stories. The BBC reported Trump’s efforts to get information on it from the government of Ukraine as an abuse of position by Trump (arguably correct), but managed to report the story without ever revealing the facts about Hunter Biden. It was not just the mainstream media – when I tried to blog on the subject, both Twitter and Facebook subjected my posts to whole new levels of suppression.
Now the Bidens are in power, the Establishment can return to methods of corruption which are well-honed, and which are kept hidden by a web of comfortable elite relationships, after the much ruder interlude from Trump. We should be grateful for Mr Robinson for a tiny glimpse into the propaganda machine that keeps the people ignorant and manufactures their consent.
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I don’t think anybody of any sense was particularly optimistic about Biden as a candidate – he’s a return to the system, and corrupt to a degree. He is just somewhat better than Trump, whose chaotic administration meant nobody knew where they were, wrecking all sorts of international treaties apparently from a caprice.
The UK Guardian probably isn’t going to get much better anytime soon, as it appears editor-in-chief Kath Viner is lining up Jessica Elgot as her chosen successor. Elgot’s journalism has been shocking, about as balanced as Freedland’s. Elgot oft-retweeted any and all claims Labour were institutionally anti-Semitic and her reporting was very one-sided; deliberately omitting important facts, like the extremely low incidence rate or even number of claims, among the then large (500,000+) LP membership.
Hopefully the guardian’s journalists are waking up to the error they made making Viner editor-in-chief and will choose more wisely next time.
Elgot seems to be particularly vicious. On the day after Robert Fisk died (you can’t libel the dead), Elgot tweeted of Fisk: ‘he fabricated so much and was so badly on the wrong side of history on Syria’: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-11-30/journalists-smear-robert-fisk/
What Elgot seems to have objected to is Fisk’s exposure of the Douma ‘chemical attack’ as probably a false flag incident engineered by Syrian jihadis and their Gulf – and Western – allies:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-gas-douma-robert-fisk-ghouta-damascus-a8307726.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/douma-syria-opcw-chemical-weapons-chlorine-gas-video-conspiracy-theory-russia-a8927116.html
See also: https://thegrayzone.com/tag/douma/
The Guardian has continuously backed ‘Assad did it’ narrative, despite the massive evidence against it.
“On the day after Robert Fisk died (you can’t libel the dead), Elgot tweeted of Fisk: ‘he fabricated so much and was so badly on the wrong side of history on Syria’”.
We have come a long way – downward – since “de mortuis nil nisi bonum”.
I remember yes, it was like a pile on, with multiple journos all of a sudden coming out to trash his reputation.
So many journos acting as one, surely has to involved coordination(?), and that raises even more questions.
Fisk himself reported in the independent that he used to receive mysterious mobile calls at 2 -3AM where upon answering he would be met by silence at the other end, and various other intimidatory tactics used against him; he saw this as proof his honest reporting was causing anxiety in high places. These tactics could of course be from any number of State adversaries he made during his career, with his detailed reports from within Syria speaking to those at the scene of incidents; reports which often contradicted official western state narratives. Fisk was one of a very rare breed these days.
zero tolerance policy from the guardian, eh? … that means we’ll soon be hearing the editor and luke harding have also been fired for that fake assange-manafort front page…. accompanied by that profuse apology that somehow went missing along the way ……
I’ve given up on commenting on Guardian BTL after numerous moderations. Interestingly they changed its name from Comment is free? I tried to raise the topic of the Assange trial with carefully crafted comments designed not to be contentious. They still moderated me. The Guardian were amazingly not covering on the case at the time and seemed to be avoiding any discussion. To add balance to a Trump pile on and ‘bone Spurs’ jibe I pointed out that Biden was a successful college football player, (a wide receiver?) yet avoided the draft due to asthma. Even cited Wikipedia references – still moderated. Seems difficult, for me at least, to add any alternative views to the Guardian consensus.
On a more subjective note, there is the odd good comment BTL, but it’s often lost in childish and over emotional posts, pile ons like dirty tag team wrestlers, ad hominem and maybe (conspiracy alert) Brigade 77.
This trend of intolerantly censoring and removing comment, not because of any legal issue or aggressive language, but simply because someone flagged it (reported) – because the views expressed don’t sit well alongside either their own, or the editorial positions – is growing.
Of course if they own the website or platform they have the right to remove content on any grounds. But it is getting pretty silly when even the most inoffensive criticism is removed on a whim without explanation. And the guardian’s moderation is demonstrably inconsistent : you can say virtually anything about Trump or Johnson but mention : Assange, Israel , Palestine or criticise Labour’s right and the comment will vanish as sure as night follows day. This is no longer the newspaper that fearlessly broke the Snowden story.
This is no longer the newspaper that fearlessly broke the Snowden story. …….. Goose
And that is more truthful and more accurately reported, Goose, as no longer a newspaper for leads into a leading free world since Great Britain agreed not to be in effective competition and undefeatable opposition to the imperial whims and wishes of an Uncle Sam and flash fiat cash crashing currency marketeers ….. Carpetbaggers Incorporated.
That’s the story of Great Britain today …….. a postmodernist quisling of a state rather than a gosling destined for greatness with celebrant knights around Round Tables. No guts, no glory, no almighty intelligence, no super especial prize.
I wouldn’t waste your time commenting at the Guardian. I commented frequently in the Corbyn days and came to the conclusion I was nothing more than cannon fodder for a professional trolling operation, with pertinent and respectful comments either immediately deleted because they didn’t toe the Guardian narrative, or trolled out of existence. I no longer even read the Guardian.
I’m not sure this can count as ‘light’.
Apart from its tokenistic pieces by Žižek, among a couple others who would do better not to associate their names with it, The Guardian is probably the most dangerous widely-read news on the planet (simply because there are so many who are so gullible as to believe it is more respectable than the rest).
It has failed time and again to address the most popular lies, distortions, crimes on which British democracy depends, and should be binned.
And now I hear what is happening to Loach. Makes me shake in my flesh and feel really sick. What kind of world have we become when the priority is to protect the image of a Nazi apartheid state, over our own children who have become so malnourished and mentally deranged under this Tory government?
As ever, Jonathan Cook provides a really comprehensive cogent commentary.
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2021-02-11/guardian-sack-columnist-israel/
Although he did not finally become editor, it’s obvious that Jonathan Freedland remains very influential at the Guardian.
As a journalist Robinson should have at least fact checked his own tweet and perhaps, when he realised he was factually incorrect, should have not followed it up by veering from incorrect fact to personal opinion as justification for the incorrect fact.
That couldn’t be the basis for their objection because they don’t care about factual accuracy, even of their own headline “scoops”.
The Intercept – Five Weeks After The Guardian’s Viral Blockbuster Assange-Manafort Scoop, No Evidence Has Emerged — Just Stonewalling
The U.S. media is very adept at being outraged when they’re denounced as “fake news.” They should think more about why that attack resonates for so many.
by Glenn Greenwald
January 2 2019, 1:43 p.m.
“The lack of media interest in the fact that Hunter Biden was receiving $720,000 a year, plus a one off $850,000, from a Ukrainian company he never visited nor did any identifiable work for, was not just laziness…”
My guess is that the reason that these stories are so quickly spiked is that they lead to many more and even more flagrant stories about both the Bidens and Ukraine.
The media and large tech companies in the US were / still are intensely hostile to Trump, to the point where they’d have virtually ignored and censored any negative story about the Bidens. As far as they were concerned nothing could be allowed to stand in the way of Trump’s defeat.
Trump, it has to be said was a uniquely awful President, maybe the least inquisitive, lowest IQ’ed president in US history? But the media need to get back to serious inquisitorial journalism fast now he’s gone. Or another Trump will be along running on an anti-establishment platform. The saccharin media coverage Biden and Harris have had can’t continue.
but the us media have been getting away from serious inquisitorial journalism for decades. the sacsharin media coverage of biden and harris will continue because it isn’t based on facts, or on journalism. it is useful propaganda.
Suggestion for a reasonable alternative to reading The Guardian?
No, there isn’t.
The Financal Times is more left wing and generally more honest
This is true. As Chomsky points out, you will often find the most accurate reporting on the business pages of the mainstream papers. The business editors know their readers aren’t going to start a revolution, so they can afford to ignore the propaganda line being pushed by the rest of the paper; in addition business leaders need to have a knowledge of the world based on reality rather than propaganda fantasies.
I still have a warm view of the FT, as they are the only national newspaper to have published a “Letter to the Editor” from me (the first I ever wrote).
It’s a good paper for knowing what the enemy are up to. :O)
For genuine leftwing opinion, there’s the Morning Star. The standard of their journalism has increased over the years.
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/
It’s hardly mainstream but it is quite widely distributed. Yesterday I noticed it on the news stand in the local spar, being displayed along with the mainstream tabloid rags. The front page story was about the growing resistance to Keir Starmer’s rightward lurch in the Labour Party and the call for a conference to restore party democracy:
Morning Star – Activists and trade unions demand emergency Labour conference in light of attacks on party ‘democracy and free speech’
Here
https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/index.html?1452042786 The Lifeboat News
https://www.counterpunch.org/ Counterpunch
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ Information Clearing House
https://southfront.org/
https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/
https://newleftreview.org/
Most of us have clear ideas what Zionism is but Zionists are pushing that Anti-Zionism = Antisemitism!
Israel is Zionist project so criticising either Zionism or Israel is Antisemitic! To understand this crazy equation I would strongly suggest debate between Melanie Phillips and another Zionist, on one team and Mehdi Hasan and Ilan Pappé (Jewish) on another.
Intelligence Squared – Debate: Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism – YouTube (1h 20m 07s)
Is there a country in the world that attracts so much criticism as Israel? Studies consistently show Israel to be one of the most disliked nations in the world (along with Iran and North Korea). But how much of this is to do with genuine concern about Israel’s actions, and how much is actually a cover for the age-old hatred of the Jews?
Mehdi Hasan of The Intercept and the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé go head to head with Times columnist Melanie Phillips and Israeli former Member of the Knesset Einat Wilf in this Intelligence Squared debate from June 2019.
If you are short of time listen to toxic Melanie and either Mehdi or Ilan.
IMHO we should refrain using Zionism and address them for what they are Jewish racist,Jewish supremacist or Jewish nationalist(oops)
Jewish racist convinced most of UK population that Zionism is just a right, of Jewish people to self determination and like everyone else to have it’s own state.Problem is “Jewish state for Jewish people” in other words ” English state for English people”
a) The Jewish state for Jewish people was created on land where majority was Palestinian people. To create “Jewish state for Jewish people” there was only one option Ethnic cleansing ! or
b) Homeland for Jewish people shared with indigenous population named Palestine or Izrael.
Zionist apologist consider Palestinians just as an Arab that can move to any Arab country!
Israel and their western supporters’ biggest boast is that they’re the only democracy in the region, and that’s basically true, but it’s only part of the story for they are surrounded by hostile populations kept at bay by dictatorships propped up by US military and economic aid, aid used to put down pro-democracy protests.
This may seem perverse, but there is ample reason to believe Israel and the US don’t want surrounding countries to become functional democracies. Egyptians (100m population) elected the Israel hostile Muslim Brotherhood in their brief flirtation with democracy after Mubarak was toppled. If surrounding Arab countries were true democracies they’d almost certainly elect those hostile to Israel because of their treatment of the Palestinians. The US and Israel are holding most of the Arab world hostage in dictatorships to suit Israel’s needs.
The term “Israel-Firster” was coined in the US, and used to describe politicians and media figures whose loyalties seem more to the Israel than their own country (US).
It’s use has since been designated anti-Semitic, but what exactly is wrong in making an evaluation about where a politician’s loyalties lie based on their behaviour? We are at the point where people aren’t allowed to call out what’s obvious.
Israel seems more like a State of the American Union.
Palestinian friendly “dictators” were humanly bombed and disposed of and democracies installed.
It’s a bit more complicated than that.
The key point is the US/UK and EU only oppose dictatorships that oppose Israel in the region, not dictatorships per se. If these currently favoured thinly veiled dictatorships and absolute monarchies in: Egypt, KSA ;Qatar ,UAE ,Bahrain, Oman and Jordan provided support for elected Hamas’ struggle the clock would start ticking on their leaders’ departures. Saddam Hussein, Muamar el Gadafi paid the price for their support as no doubt would Bashar al-Assad in Syria had the Russians and a UK parliamentary vote against intervention not happened.
As for supporting the building of strong democracies, Libya and Iraq, well, they’re hardly shining examples of what intervention brings, it looks as though the west prefers to leave Libya in chaos having bombed it into a messy civil war. And the west’s relationship with terrorism plagued Iraqi and its corrupt, weak govt is hardly warm.
From Oct 2018. Speaking about after a meeting with KSA’s leader.
Trump : But I said ‘King – we’re protecting you – you might not be there for two weeks without us…’
As long as KSA sells oil in $ and do not support Palestinians they are safe. Butchering odd journalist is not big deal.
In my previous post I was referring to Libya Iraq and Syria and for different reason Afghanistan.
The international community will not accept the coup in Myanmar and we will hold those responsible to account. The UK welcomes @POTUS steps today to send a strong message to the military regime. [the UK] is urgently looking at further measures under our own sanctions regimes.
— Dominic Raab 12h ago
This is the sort of hypocrisy we’re supposed to simply ignore. He could just as easily have swapped Myanmar for Egypt.
Zionism is a fascist, racist and antisemite ideology invented (like many similar ideologies) in the 1890s. Zionism was intended to replace Judaism and to a large extent it has except to those of us who distinguish between people who follow the Jewish religion and apostates who pose as Jews whose behaviour is antithetical to the religion.
Does anyone remember if, during the apartheid era, you could be blacklisted or fired from your job for associating with or befriending an author who was anti-apartheid?
I’m just trying to get my head around the craziness of why certain people should be having to apologise publicly for liking the work of Ken Loach, and further, why the Daily Mail and other rags are publishing stories about these apologies.
Is this the real world I am in, or am I dreaming this? I think I’ve been totally gaslighted by this world.
Imagine the flowchart : – -> – you’re OK | -> you’re literally a Nazi.
Some truly ridiculous binary thinking going on at the moment in media land. Gross oversimplication of complex issues with antisemitism accusations being thrown around like confetti.
I don’t know the answer to your first question but having Investigation about influence/infiltration of far left in to BLM and XR(Extinction Rebellion) is gaslighting in my book. Who is appointed? Lord Walney (ex Labour MP John Woodcock accused of sexual misbehaviour)
I am quite sure BLM was infiltrated by Black skinned people. Let’s wait for results of investigation. Sarcasm is dangerous game
The email exchange between the two at the G (provided by someone in the replies of his twitter post) suggested there was more to his sacking than being ‘anti Israel’ as he stated. He tweeted some extremely borderline stuff imo.
Also read a suggestion in the replies that caught the eye – someone claiming that ‘anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism’ is akin to claiming anti-KKK is anti-Protestant. Is this an accurate or way off analogy?
I find it worrying that the Guardian employ someone as a journalist, who doesn’t know the difference between the law and political custom. Nicola Sturgeon is trying to establish the political custom in Scotland that women are allowed to lie in court with impunity and to send innocent men to prison. Alex Salmond is standing his ground and demanding that the law be maintained. If you think there is no difference between political custom and the law, then you are indifferent to the fate of Salmond and Sturgeon.
Hopefully the Guardian will replace Nathan J Robinson with someone who will investigate why the US is so strong an ally to Israel. Somehow I doubt it.
I suspect his real offence was drawing attention to the fact that the US controls Israel, not the other way round, as the US controls many other countries around the world, including the UK. That was Corbyn’s real offence in the 2019 general election too – the ‘anti-semitism’ only a smokescreen to destroy a critic of NATO etc.
And we’re in another smokescreen now. As the US empire begins to collapse under cover of a virus alert, the British people are being conditioned to be obedient towards their ‘betters’ in straitened times without the US ponzi money tree.
If only it were just the guardian. In the US and UK at a rough estimate 90% of the political class are craven to Israel and Israel’s many lobbyists. I still don’t undertstand why an Israeli diplomat offering up a £1m bounty in front of an enthusiastic Labour MP – for lists of MPs – a diplomat later seen boasting about being able to remove UK ministers at will, didn’t raise alarms in our intel agencies? Just imagine if a leftist Corbynite MP had been caught on camera inquiring about a Kremlin funded £1m bounty for lists of MPs with a Russian diplomat ; I’d wager we’d still be getting tabloid and broadsheet headlines about such a prima facie treasonous betrayal today.
On the subject of not being able to criticise and poor western reporting, Ben Norton tweets:
‘I cannot stress this enough: What we are seeing in Ecuador is an attempt to steal an election from a popular leftist candidate.’
—
Looking at the US’s long and well documented history of interference in S.America. The determination of the US political class, State Dept and CIA, to oppose the election of parties and individuals around the world on the basis of ideology. What’s striking is there seems to be a total inability to understand why poor people are drawn to leftist/socialist candidates. Indeed, if freely elected,the US then acts vindictively through a sanctions based approach in an attempt to destabilize said individual or govt , compounding that initial lack of understanding.
It’s because the zionist occupiers of Palestine are a US proxy. As a quid pro quo, the zionists do American Caesar’s dirty work, same as the Saud perverts. Fear of being threatened by zionists is fear of the US empire. QED.
Ministers will fine universities which stifle freedom of speech and tell heritage groups “public funds must never be used for political purposes” in a major new bid to torpedo efforts at rewriting Britain’s history – Telegraph
This, while Secretary of State for ‘Education’, Gavin Williamson, is trying to ram the deeply flawed IHRA working definition of antisemitism down universities’ throats. Brazen hypocrisy again.
The Australian PM is pathetic.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced that WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange will be “free to return home” to Australia once his legal proceedings in the United Kingdom have ended.
Morrison’s remarks come amid pressure from Australian politicians, who have called on the country’s government to ask the Trump administration to pardon Assange and end its legal campaign against him. While Coalition backbencher George Christensen and South Australian independent senator Rex Patrick called directly for a presidential pardon, the opposing Labor Party said the government should “do what it can to draw a line under this matter.”
https://www.rt.com/news/511558-julian-assange-australia-extradition-us/
Big deal from Morrison. What, if anything, has he ever done to assist Assange? Zilch.