"I am by birth a free Commoner of England, and am thereby intailed or intituled unto an equall priviledge with your selfe, or the greatest men in England, unto the freedome and liberty of the Lawes of England."
William Thompson, 14. of December, 1647
Showing posts with label Mendacious media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mendacious media. Show all posts
The important thing is to focus on the real story: the outrage of shooting down a warplane, just because it happens to stray accidentally into your airspace. It's immaterial that the Turkish government is allowing its territory to be used for training Al Qaeda death squads and funneling weapons to anti-government militias, or that Turkey's main Nato allies are drooling at the prospect of raining death down on Syria in support of their Sunni extremist chums in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, which is most likely making the Syrian air defence somewhat jittery. Forget all that.
Ed Mil’s statement on immigration, heralded as some kind of admission of mistakes when the party was under previous leadership (i.e., somebody else’s fault), deserves little attention. There is no apology in his words, nor should we expect or give respect to any one that was forthcoming. The truth of the matter has long been known, that Labour purposefully embarked on a policy of mass immigration, intent on socially engineering the population and obtaining political advantage. The propaganda spin that the government was ‘wrongly advised’ on the numbers is a stinking and cowardly lie.
Additionally, let us look at his proposals to deal with the problem his party helped create. As a true Big Gov authoritarian, the answer is new laws for the rest of us and new shackles on business. Moreover, the ostensible ‘apology’ is quickly turned round into an attack on capitalism:
He said: "Labour has to change its approach to immigration but you cannot answer people's concerns on immigration unless you change the way your economy works.”
So, there you have it. The problem: government. The solution: more government!
Finally, casually inserted down the article we see the driving force behind Ed’s change of heart:
“Polling recently published by Policy Exchange shows that a Labour shift on immigration and welfare would be the single most important issues to win back Labour swing voters.”
It was, in the words of U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan, the “tipping point” in the Syria conflict: a savage massacre of over 90 people, predominantly women and children, for which the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad was immediately blamed by virtually the entirety of the Western media. Within days of the first reports of the Houla massacre, the U.S., France, Great Britain, Germany, and several other Western countries announced that they were expelling Syria’s ambassadors in protest.
But according to a new report in Germany’s leading daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the Houla massacre was in fact committed by anti-Assad Sunni militants, and the bulk of the victims were member of the Alawi and Shia minorities, which have been largely supportive of Assad. For its account of the massacre, the report cites opponents of Assad, who, however, declined to have their names appear in print out of fear of reprisals from armed opposition groups.
I have been contacted by a group of Western women who live in Syria and who believe that most of what the world is being told about that country is false...
The Mayor of London insists the corporation, which is funded by the taxpayer, must be run by someone who is “free-market” and “pro-business”.
Boris, chum, I'm sure you mean well, but try to think things through. You need to be consistent. If you believe in free markets, follow the logic, apply that logic to the BBC. It cannot be changed from what it is by sticking some smart Alec free-trade Tory in the big chair (supposing you could find a free-trade Tory), any more than you can change a pack of wolves by appointing Larry the Lamb as the alpha male.
A BBC spokeswoman said: "BBC News is committed to impartiality and we reject Boris Johnson's assertions of bias.
I'd laugh but I'm snarling too much. Cutting to the chase; the BBC must be smashed. It is a propaganda machine, funded by coercion, cranking out disinformation for the benefit of the establishment (e.g. in its 'coverage' of the war on Libya). It cannot be expected to be impartial, when it is part of the Leviathan state. It has influence which Murdoch at his height could only dream of. It is not needed and it never was needed, any more than a government-run newspaper, funded through a tax on reading.
The fact that it has produced some good programmes over the years does not change its essential illegitimacy. If people love it so much, and I don't doubt many do, then they will continue to support it, once it is prevented from using the violence of the state to enforce its monopoly power.
As for the new Director General, I nominate Sean Gabb.
Is it true, or is it The Daily Mail? I don't know, I'll have to wait for EU Referendum, nevertheless ...
Britain is launching a battle against EU plans to force the government to allow non-Europeans a benefit allowance.
They have been angered by an EU proposal to sign a deal with Turkey without Britain’s agreement, which could mean Turkish citizens’ would gain access to the UK welfare system.
Chris Grayling, the employment minister, has told British officials in Brussels to argue against the plans later this month, which encroach further on British sovereignty.
How pathetic. "Britain" is most certainly not launching a battle against EU plans. The crooked Tory government can mouth off as much as it likes. The only power Brussels has is the power that the British government willingly gave them, and if Chris Grayling thinks that the 'British' officials in Brussels are going to do his bidding, he's naive to say the least. Seeing as the British government considers anyone who opposes EU membership as a 'fruitcake' or 'closet racist', why don't they openly embrace their willing servitude and shut the fuck up with the faux-whining.
As is the way with the internet, one link leads to another. In the first article, it's not surprising that a corporation stops funding a group if doing so will be perceived as controversial, as is the case with the Heartland Institute's latest ad campaign. What I find disturbing is this quote from its spokesman:
"Diageo vigorously opposes climate scepticism and our actions are proof of this."
Huh? Why would a drinks company 'vigorously oppose' one side in a scientific argument? I could understand a company saying: 'we take climate change seriously and are doing what we can to love the planet for our children ... and our children's children', but 'vigorously opposing' a widely held view in an on-going scientific debate? What else, I wonder? What is the corporate position on String Theory? Sadly, Diageo owns Guinness, a favourite tipple of mine. Perhaps I should take my custom elsewhere.
The second article is more interesting if you imagine the reverse situation to the one discussed: i.e. a journalist working for the Heartland Institute using dishonest means to get information out of one of the propaganda production units of the global warming industry. I'm imagining; shock! outrage! demands for the long arm of the law and exemplary punishment.
With the third and fourth articles (the latter from last year) we descend further into a hellish pit of scientologistical jacobinism, where 'academics' attempt to stifle debate and ban contrary voices, so hysterically fearful are they that the edifice of half-truths and assertions they call 'the consensus' will come crashing down as soon as someone pokes it with a pencil. Thus:
The letter, which is addressed "from the Australian academic community" to Notre Dame, a Catholic university in Western Australia, was originally drafted by Natalie Latter, a political science postgraduate student at the University of Western Australia. The letter says Monckton's lecture is particularly unwelcome in light of recent death threats made against Australian climate scientists.
D-D-D-D-Death threats? What, these death threats? The ones you made up and got caught lying about by the Aussie Info Commissioner?
Via Fausty, I discover an article in the Telegraph, attacking the idea of Britain leaving the EU, using a strawman of dubious comparisons to Switzerland:
"Perhaps when the British talk about independence along Swiss lines, all they really mean is that the UK should quit the EU to become a reborn island fortress, trading mainly with the US and the old Commonwealth.
But is even this feasible? How could the EU, with its 430 million population, possibly be ignored? And would Europe tolerate the emergence on its doorstep of a large, aggressively capitalist maverick state without immediately seeking to rein it in? Or do those urging British withdrawal secretly believe that a UK departure would bring down the entire house of cards, leaving only free trade behind to mark its passing?
Perhaps. We live in interesting times."
Firstly we encounter the usual conflation of trade and political unity, or to put it another way, the ludicrous suggestion that the nation would cease to trade with countries within the EU if we left, and that those advocating national sovereignty would seek such a foolish goal. So, the question of its feasibility is irrelevant and misleading. But, note what comes next: the question of whether the EU (falsely called 'Europe') would 'tolerate' this. Here we can see one of the latent, although rarely stressed, beliefs in favour of our continued EU imprisonment: FEAR. We should remain inside the EU, because of what the remaining EU will do to us if we leave. Well, at least it helps dispense with all the fluffy 'brotherhood of man' bullshit we are usually told. However, it;s not much of a selling point, is it?
Listening to John Humphreys beating up on a spokesman for the internet service providers this morning, with one of the puritan nanny MPs waiting to wade in with her half-baked version of the truth, I figure the ISPs better get their act together.
Maybe it’s Humphreys’ style, or maybe it’s whenever he senses a weakness, but he seems to allow the thin veneer of objectivity to disintegrate on certain subjects, and internet censorship is one of them.
The argument which the ISP person couldn’t seem to make was that about prior restraint; that, just because some people may use certain technology to share files for which they did not have the copyright to do so, that everyone should thus be prevented from being able to share files, which is tantamount to prohibiting the purchase of hammers, because someone may use one to hit somebody else over the head, or banning cars, because someone may use one to get away after a bank robbery etc, etc.
For my part, the sound of Humphreys in high moral dudgeon at 7.45 am was way too much. With this issue and the on-going brouhaha over Murdoch, the position of the BBC as state-run quasi-monopoly, which no one breathes a word about, seems ever more incongruous. How the hell these broadcast journalists can keep a straight face day after day, cranking out hyperbole over Murdoch’s influence I do not know. I suppose it’s more than feasible that they don’t notice the large grey mammal, being so adept at ‘doublethink’.
As for the witless nanny MP, she based her argument on two completely contradictory factoids; the first, that the percentage of homes opting to have their ISP block dirty pictures is very low; the second; that a poll of the public indicated that the percentage of those who want the ISPs to block dirty pictures is very high.
Of course, from the libertarian point of view, a majority in favour of curtailing liberty changes nothing.
You know, I think I'd take the Daily Mail's campaign against porn a little more seriously, if it wasn't so heavily adorned (or rather endowed)with pictures like the above. There's no news story involved in Imogen Thomas (who?) going to the beach. The reason it is included is so the Mail can put in pictures of a girl with hardly any clothes on. And if blondes is more your thing, fellas, click here ...
Also, I note they're taking out the anti-smoking playbook, by turning it round on to 'Big Porno' - i.e., attacking the industry, rather than the consumer, with mock outrage that someone's making money from it.
As my blogging comrade JuliaM notes, the Guardian - via its Sunday sister The Observer - is beseeching the government to turn the flame-throwers on the tattered remains of our liberty in an editorial entitled: "Public health: tackle this obesity crisis, Mr Cameron", the final paragraph of which reads:
No one doubts it is a huge cultural, political and behavioural challenge or pretends there is an easy solution. But if the answers, whatever they are, involve challenging corporate power and practices, legislating to improve the content of food or even limiting individuals' freedom to consume junk, then so be it. Only radical action will begin to win the challenge of obesity.
Here we see encapsulated the strategy of the enemies of liberty. Firstly, we have the manufacturing of a public health crisis; the 'obesity epidemic'. Secondly, we have the identification of the enemy. Following the tobacco-control playbook, this enemy is the powerful corporations who must be curbed by the force of law. Thirdly we have the necessity to protect people from themselves, i.e., an attack on individual freedom 'to consume junk'.
Let us not waste time trying to reason with these people. They are the enemies of all that is good and true.
Even in the rogues gallery of The Guardian's 'Comment is Free', Neal Lawson stands above the crowd as a Class A Cunt. Via Longrider, it is my misfortune to read his opinion piece on why advertising should be banned. And why is that? Because apparently Neal Lawson cannot see a poster of a male model without breaking down in tears over his own inadequacy. Much as I endorse his self-loathing, unfortunately this is the only rational thought that has occurred in his fevered, authoritarian, freedom-hating mind.
Whatever disutilities one can associate with billboard advertising, they pale into nothing compared to the disutility of having cunts like Lawson spreading their venomous and putrid swill. The agenda Lawson is pushing represents an attack on not merely individual liberty and responsibility, but the very notion of adulthood. On top of this is the repudiation of private property in favour of the collective - a collective, which according to Lawson's despicable view is made up of mindless drones in thrall of whatever advert they last saw.
By the way, the title is ironic. I don't want to ban Neal Lawson, because, unlike Neal Lawson, I'm not a jackboot-licking piece of trash, and I have more than two categories - compulsory or prohibited - for the things in this world.
I have a post category named 'mendacious media'. Here's one for the file. The Trayvon Martin case is obviously much less of a deal over this side of the Atlantic, but NBC's doctored 911 call by the shooter, Zimmerman, prior to the incident has no doubt stoked tensions.
What NBC broadcast:
Zimmerman: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”
What was actually said:
Zimmerman: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.”
Dispatcher: “OK, and this guy – is he white, black or Hispanic?”
Zimmerman: “He looks black.”
NBC have apologised and sacked the producer, since being caught.
It's with good reason the BBC is referred to round here by the name George Orwell coined for it - the Ministry of Truth. Yesterday's 10 p.m. Radio 4 news provided an archetypal example of what they mean by balance, when it comes to the EU.
The subject was about the 'democratic deficit' and whether this was peradventure growing, given the imposition of technocratic executives in various countries and the widespread opposition amongst the pitchfork-wielding peasantry.
If you were going to approach such an issue with balance, you'd want to get at least two different viewpoints from opposite sides of the debate. But if you are the Ministry of Truth, what you will do is get two slightly nuanced viewpoints from the same miniscule fraction of of the debate, that being the fraction believed in and supported by the political rump.
Thus we had some prick from the European Council on Foreign Relations and one of the grandees from the Low Countries, whose name I refuse to recall for the moment (the ex-Luxembourg PM or something, what's the fucking difference?).
This so-called 'democratic deficit' is acknowledged, but only as a technical difficulty. Sure, the hoi polloi are against the destruction of sovereignty and the hand-over of power to a junta of failed politicians, ex-maoists and child-molesters (AKA the Kommission), however the 'solution' is to find a way to mollify this opposition, rather than to take any heed of it. The notion that such opposition should in fact preclude any further consolidation of power in Brussels is alien to their thinking.
Pausing for a moment, I note that we, the people who want independence, have not got our act together. I see on some of the UKIP blogs, a broad degree of dissatisfaction with what their party is, or rather is not, doing. We really do need to have a coherent message and a vehicle for that message.
There's something strangely familiar about this piece of news carried by The Independent:
As many as 18 premature babies, all of whom were being kept alive on generators, were reportedly killed after power was cut to Homs’ Al-Walid hospital. “The families were there when it happened,” said Mahmoud Araby, a 25-year-old student who was among dozens of families sheltering inside a wedding hall when they heard the news. “We were so angry and disgusted.” State TV denied the incident, claiming all hospitals in the area were functioning as normal.
Of course, I'm thinking of the Big Lie used to gee up the American public for the first Gulf War, that Iraqi troops were throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals. It never happened, but it worked a treat. With that idea fixed in everyone's mind, the Iraqi conscript was effectively dehumanised, and could then be killed without a pangs of conscience.
Whatever is happening in Syria right now, we the public have no real idea. We certainly cannot trust the establishment media to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It would be more sensible to start with a default position of deep scepticism. There is no doubt that powerful interests want Assad toppled, and other powerful interests want to keep him in power. The former have an MO which includes funding terrorists and using establishment media to diseminate black propaganda. Both sides are prepared to stoop to brutality. Let us not allow this country to be dragged into yet another foreign adventure, nor should we close our eyes to this elements sheltered under the wings of our own state who have a long track record in the dark arts of espionage and terrorism.
For the second time in barely a fortnight the establishment media is spreading false stories about Jesse Ventura.
First it was about him being in a road-rage incident in California when he was in fact hundreds of miles away in Minnesota, and now, far more maliciously, that he was punched out in a Navy Seals bar for saying that American troops deserved to die, and interestingly the story hit when he had just left the country and would be incommunicado for a couple of days.
Anyone who is remotely familiar with the guy knows this story is a stinking lie. Jesse is proud to the core of his service in the Seals and that of his parents and other members of his family, and although he has been scathing in attacking the wars of recent years, he has never attacked the troops who have been serving.
This is clearly an attempt to blacken his name, and try to silence him. He has spoken in the past of maybe running for the Presidency on the Libertarian Party ticket, and unless Ron Paul is chosen by the GOP, I certainly hope he gives it some serious thought. This kind of dirty, back-stabbing attack is most likely to encourage him to do just that.
In political discourse, as in communication in general, the choice of words is paramount. In addition to the simple meaning of words there are anciliary associations and implications which the wordsmith uses to reinforce the desired message.
The above is intended to be a statement of the obvious, as a prologue to noting the use of the word 'obsession' with regard to the beliefs and opinions of one's political adversaries. This particular one is often leveled at people like myself, who hold views which are not endorsed by the so-called mainstream. The aim is to convey the idea that the object is something unwholesome, or that the belief or interest in the thing stems not from a rational decision of the intellect, but from an impulse originating in the basal ganglia or some other primitive part of the brain.
1. Compulsive preoccupation with a fixed idea or an unwanted feeling or emotion, often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety.
2. A compulsive, often unreasonable idea or emotion.
So, is Ron Paul obsessed with Austrian Economics? If, when you asked him if he wanted a cup of tea, he grabbed your lapels and, with a faraway look in his eyes, uttered:
There are certain unsettled questions in economic theory that have been handed down as a sort of legacy from one generation to another. The discussion of these questions is revived twenty or it may be a hundred times in the course of a decade, and each time the disputants exhaust their intellectual resources in the endeavor to impress their views upon their contemporaries. Not infrequently the discussion is carried far beyond the limits of weariness and satiety, so that it may well be regarded as an offence against good taste to again recur to so well-worn a theme. And yet these questions return again and again, like troubled spirits doomed restlessly to wander until the hour of their deliverance shall appear. It may be that since the last discussion of the question we have made some real or fancied discoveries in the science, and some may think that these throw new light upon the old question. Instantly the old strife breaks forth anew, with the same liveliness as if it possessed the charm of entire novelty, and so it continues year after year, and will continue, until the troubled spirit is at last set free. In this class we find the question -- What is the "ultimate standard of value"?
... then you may have reason to suggest that the Good Doctor is obsessed. As this is certainly not the case, and that, going by the thousands of Ron Paul clips on the internet, he is quite capable of confining his discussion of Austrian Economics to occasions when it is indeed relevant, we can safely surmise that the writer's use of the word 'obsessed' is rhetorical sleight-of-hand.
So, in order to encourage the correct use of the word 'obsession' I offer the following examples to Matthew Yglesias of poor and misleading usage:
If I like a book that you don't like, it does not follow that I am obsessed with the book.
If I like 'The Godfather' and you don't, it does not follow that I am obsessed with gangster movies.
If I come home and find you robbing my television, and I object, it does not follow that I am obsessed with private property or material possessions.
If a woman discovers you have stolen a pair of her high-heeled slippers and you are currently masturbating furiously to the point of ejaculation all over them, and she objects, it does not follow that she's obsessed with hygiene, or indeed preventing the perfidious sin of Onan.
Juan Williams talks to John Stossel (from a while back, I think) about the assault on free speech by the Americans refer to as liberals (i.e. leftwingers).
Below are various links to the Ron Paul newsletters, which his enemies have been making such a song and dance over. Readers, make up your own minds. I've gone through all the links below, and find very little dirt, and certainly nothing to justify the slurs being leveled at him.
My advice to the Ron Paul camp is gather them all together and publish them. Your enemies want to cherry-pick. Give 'em the whole tree!
The titles of the documents are given by the file names. I cannot vouch that they are correct.
Freedom April 1978 - A three-page extract, regarding the Canal Treaty. Nothing untoward, as far as I can see. Freedom May 1979 - A one-page extract, regarding nuclear power. Nothing untoward, as far as I can see. Freedom August 1983 - A one-page extract, regarding tax enforcement and big government. Nothing untoward, as far as I can see. ? January 1988 - A one-page extract, reporting, but not endorsing, William C. Douglass M.D's claims that AIDS is man-made. Ron Paul Political Report September 1988 - A three-page extract. discussing Rockefeller and the Tri-Laterals, plus a mention of Scorsese's 'Last Temptation' movie. Ron Paul Investment Letter April 1988 - A one-page extract. Nothing untoward, as far as I can see. Ron Paul Investment Letter May 1988 - A one-page extract. Nothing untoward, as far as I can see. Ron Paul Political Report April 1989 - A two-page extract. Quite interesting. It mentions the drug war, gun bans, Salman Rushdie, David Duke and skinheads, amongst other things. Ron Paul Political Report, November 1989 - A three-page extract, reporting on Spy Magazine crashing Bohemian Grove. Ron Paul Political Report, December 1989 - A seven-page extract (page 3 is missing, and possibly later pages). This is worth viewing as it discusses racism and homosexuality, and is one of documents that Dr Paul's foes are mining. ? January 1990 - A one-page extract, mentioning drug legalisation and criticising gay rights activists for their actions against the Catholic church. ? July 1990 - A one-page extract, mentions gay lobby attacking Tom Clancy Ron Paul Political Report January 1992 - A two-page extract, endorsing Pat Buchanan's presidential run, despite not agreeing with him on everything. Ron Paul Investment Letter February 1992 - A two-page extract. Nothing untoward, as far as I can see. ? July 1992 - Five pages of extracts, pages missing in between. Plenty of race stuff here. As ever, judge for yourselves. Ron Paul Investment Letter October 1992 - A one-page extract, with comments on car-jacking. Racist? Shocking? You decide. ? November 1992 - A two-page extract. Nothing untoward, as far as I can see. Survival Report January 1993 - A one-page extract, with a mention of demographics and race. Survival Report April 1993 - A one-page extract, containing the reference to the 1993 attack on the WTC. It's worth comparing what actually was written and how this is being misrepresented, for instance in the CNN interview below. The writer does not accuse Mossad of involvement, but merely notes that a friend of his thinks so. Survival Report September 1994 - A one-page extract, mentioning AIDS. Survival Report September 1995 - A one-page extract, mentioning foreign troops on US soil. Survival Report May 1996 - A one-page extract. Nothing untoward, as far as I can see.
Update: Some intelligent comment here from Proteanview.
