A feature of the Today programme is the succession of Americans from the arts world who invited to tell us just how much they dislike George Bush. Today we were treated to this ‘Today’ interview (RealAudio) with veteran American director Robert Altman, in which he was invited to hold forth at length on American politics (‘the wrong war, wrong time, wrong leader’).
(One tiny note of reality intrudes, where interviewer and interviewee are discussing how a new wave of socially aware films (e.g. Bareback Mounting and .. er ..) reflects the changing political awareness of America. The interviewer points out that though critics loved them, the public weren’t quite so keen.)
UPDATE – Scott at the Ablution points out that this is a double – yesterday the Today programme treated us to a plug for George Clooney’s Syriana.
One more obvious point. The main reason why lefties dont bother to contribute to this site. Is because they dont nead to. If they have a problem they know the BBC will listen. We gave up trying to get the BBC to listen a long time ago. We are just talking to ourselves, because it stops us boring our wives.
Rick I disagree with the idea that a government is entitled to a fine a company based on its profits.
It is the only fair basis of taxation – if you tax them on anything else it becomes a fixed cost – and if you didn’t tax profits there would be no tax incentive to invest nor would there be tax relief on interest payments – it would destroy most capital-intensive businesses
Archduke
I believe that you think you are, but you arnt. Unless it is the BNP type, which I also dont think you are. I get accused of being left wing all the time. But I know Im not. Self knowledge is a wonderfull thing.
Nice little snide comment from Dumbleby on ‘Any Questions?’ this evening. Lord Tebbit (PBUH) in response to a question about falling birth rates responded by giving a simple, straightforward answer. I though he could have gone alot further than he did but hey ho. Before moving on Dumbleby says “You may or may not have been offended by that answer …” Eh? Now if this was a stock response which he trotted out then fair enough, but it only it was only said after Lord Tebbit spoke.
Maybe Dumbleby was still in shock after Lord Tebbit corrected Germaine Greer, who stated that the David Irvine may be made into a martyr to the Right by being incarcerated. Lord Tebbit gloriously pointed out that the Nazies were not into a small state and free enterprise, he told her (and the now reeling audience) that the great murderers – Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot – are all of te left. You could hear the audience groaning and hissing in disapproval. Glorious stuff! How they wail and thrash when home truths are driven home, these Left wing scumbags. All hail Lord T, a genuine stout bulldog.
Gary -> possibly. but then irish politics is skewed to the right, as it is in America. so to English politics,i’m probably centrist.
heck, maybe thats why i can see the left wing bias in the bbc so.
“Lord Tebbit (PBUH) ”
ha ha! that made me laugh… good idea though. i like that counterbalance to all the “Prophet” with a capital P nonsense.
“in response to a question about falling birth rates responded by giving a simple, straightforward answer. ”
pete – what was Lord Tebbit’s (PBUH) answer?
OT:
Just saw the news headlines on the beeb. Main one was Livingstone being banned for four weeks. They had (on the headlines) a spokeswoman for Livingstone saying “This is ridiculous, an unelected body removing the elected mayor of london from office – outrageous”. So, much like a court (which is, so far as I can recall, unelected) deciding that an elected official should spend some time at her majesty’s pleasure. I can’t see a disconnect here…
Interesting though that the BBC decide that the main thrust of the story is that the elected official is removed from office rather than what surely is the main thrust of the story, that being what Livingstone said.
We are told by the BBC that elections are desided on the middle grownd? This largly because most people are middle of the road, and neally all floating voters, come from the middle. So therefore why is it that a true middle of the road view is never represented anywhere ever on the BBC. Every-one is always refered to as either left or right. Useing the understanding of both that it used for war time. This is because the BBC is still at war. A war against the people of this country. In favour of the Nazification of Europe. They are winning, but they have not won….yet.
listening to “any answers”.
wooah. Germaine Greer comes over all anti-dhimmi/islamofascist (about 25:00 in) on the issue of Iraq. she infers that she wants strong arm tactics to get control of the situation (rather like what saddam used to do)
astounding
Lord Tebbits contribution?
Stand back, let them sort it out.
“they’ve hated each other for centuries – we cant do anything about it”
Tebbit’s contribution is the more idealistic one – much as i agree with it – but Greer is , to be honest, the more pragmatic, realistic option.
well worth listening to.
archduke
The Good Lord Tebbit’s answer landed on three or four factors as to why birth rates are falling. One was that a working father cannot afford to support a family, another was that this government has descriminated against the family and marriage and another was that our culture is much more geared to buying what we want today at the expense of the long, slow, hard business of raising a family. It was all simple, straightforward stuff and nothing to take offence at.
“So therefore why is it that a true middle of the road view is never represented anywhere ever on the BBC. Every-one is always refered to as either left or right.”
good point Gary , good point. as i said above, by English standards, i would be centrist.
a quick google search of bbc.co.uk
http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=site%3Awww.bbc.co.uk+centrist&btnG=Search&meta=
30 mentions of “centrist”
http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=site%3Awww.bbc.co.uk+left+wing&btnG=Search&meta=
19,400 mentions of “left wing”
http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=site%3Awww.bbc.co.uk+right+wing&btnG=Search&meta=
19,700 mentions of “right wing”
but in bbc land , if you are centrist, you have to be either centre-left or centre-right (huh???)
117,000 mentions of centre-left
http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=site%3Awww.bbc.co.uk+centre+left&btnG=Search&meta=
184,000 mentions of centre-right
http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=site%3Awww.bbc.co.uk+centre+right&btnG=Search&meta=
Archduke
Yes; this is because the British Conservative party is not and never has been tied to any particular religious group. As is the Republican party in America. This makes the British Conservative party unique in the world. A lott of people describe themselves as left-wing because they dont like the constrants of religion. Right-wingers describe themselves as so, just to indicate a belief in god. None of it however has anything to do with freedom of the individual, under the law, verses BIG goverment,run by intellectuals. Neally every one believes in the former. Which is why all the people of the world are Tories at heart. Vote for them or not.
“Lord Tebbit (PBUH) in response to a question about falling birth rates responded by giving a simple straightforward answer”
sidenote: Germaine Greer came across very BNP regarding children. again, astounding. mothers should be paid to have kids. “anglo saxons” are being out bred. stuff like that. its about 40 minutes into any answers.
the left is turning into the right on certain issues? sure looks like it.
the answer from the Prophet of Chingford (PBUH) was:
“well, it was a danish friend of mine
who said if we are so much richer than in my fathers time , why is that nowadays both me and my wife have to go to work, when in my fathers day on he needed to go out to work”
and the reason?
“in our desire for all the goodies of life, computers, cars, whatever, people have decided that they would rather have the goodies than children”
“we do pay people to have kids – but the only people we pay are young teenage girls. we make them better off than their teenage compatriots who decide not to have kids. we dont pay anything to keep families together. we break those up now. families are now worse if they stick together than if they split up – and thats part of the problem”
dimblebey thought that was a “controversial” viewpoint.
huh?
made utter 100 per cent common sense to me. i dont think anything that Lord Tebbit (PBUH) was factually incorrect.
(god knows – the wife and myself have done our tax returns, and sure enough she’s said to me – we’d be better off divorced because of the current benefits/tax craziness. not that we’ve split up mind you. it was just what we discovered when doing a tax return last year)
“A lott of people describe themselves as left-wing because they dont like the constrants of religion. Right-wingers describe themselves as so, just to indicate a belief in god.”
yes indeed. that would be my background alright. Ireland is quite a religious country, so you can see where i come from – i’m anti-religion, so i’m therefore “left wing”
“None of it however has anything to do with freedom of the individual, under the law, verses BIG goverment,run by intellectuals. Neally every one believes in the former. Which is why all the people of the world are Tories at heart. Vote for them or not.”
I agree. its just taken us Europeans about 60 odd years to catch up with that American idea. (although i do know that it stretches back further into European history)
to be honest, the Danish cartoon thing has been the turning point – where it will lead, god knows. but i do know that a lot of my left wing friends are seriously mulling things over right now. the islamo reaction has been a wake up call so to speak.
quite frankly, i dont think the Tories need to do anything. this will be a natural movement towards them, irrespective of what ever “policy” the boy king Cameron comes up with.
http://www.nefafoundation.org/
Real film of the London cartoon demo outside the US Embassy.
We are forced to pay £1 billion or more a year for BBC news services – but they fail in the basics of bringing us a real picture of the intensity of ther goons amongst us.
Are they afraid to film the reality ? Or do they film it and then censor it ? Why do they put Abu Ghraib on and endless loop – but never show us this stuff ?
sorry – outside the Danish Embassy
archduke
Welcome to the Dark Side.
And thanks for filling in the blanks re. Commandant Tebbit of Jackboot Hall. I’m still perplexed by Dumbleby’s reaction, though aybe I shouldn’t be. I’m most perplexed though by the fact that Tebbit and Trevor Kavanagh of The Sun were on the same panel. This breaches the BBC’s Golden Rule of Panel Discussions, which is: no matter how many Leftist politicians, writers, actors and comedians are on the panel, only one Fascist is allowed.
In other news, the train will soon be pulling into posturing central:
ROCK STARS MAKE PEACE PRIZE LIST
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4749392.stm
Irish rock stars Bob Geldof and Bono are among some 191 nominees in the running for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Geldof was nominated for organising last year’s Live8 charity concerts, while U2 frontman Bono was proposed for campaigning against world poverty. Other nominees include former US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Israeli dissident Mordechai Vanunu.
Eh? Mordechai Vanunu? Dissident? Being convicted in court under due process of blowing the whistle on your country’s most secret defence matters makes you a dissident? Aung San Suu Kyi may be a dissident, she’s under house arrest for political views. Vanunu is a tried and convicted traitor.
Oh, hang on, we’re talking Jews. I get it now …
archduke
I disagree with your assertion that Germain is being pragmatic. No-one can force people to like each other. But they can create a situation that is to the advantage of both to co-exsist. This has been done before in your country remember. But history unfortunatly tells us that this is almost never done without some “Blood letting”, on both sides. A lott like bullies in the playgrownd.
It is clear to me that the real target for this war is and always has been IRAN. Which is why nothing anyone says makes any real sense. Saddam did not have any WMD simply because he would rather relie on BLUFF and spend the money on something else. Iran however openly boasts about them, which is politicaly a very much bigger problem. The west backed Saddam and then got rid of him for a very BIG reason. To assist Israel in averting a middle-eastern nuclear war. Blowing away not only over 200,000,000 people, but most of the worlds oil supplies. This is real mans “poker”. Even if the BBC wanted to tell you this to often, they would not be allowed to.
colin powell – a military man – who went to the UN with “saddams mobile chemical labs” in order to justify a war?
not that i was against the war, but it seems to me that the peace prize nominations are just crackers.
and what peace have bono and geldof brought to the world? last time i checked darfur was still raging.
my own personal nomination would be the president of Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani.
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001060.html
in an area of the world that is just seething with terrorism, how he managed to bring peace to the kurdish area of iraq is amazing. ok, the peshmerga are behind it – but still – its an oasis of peace in a troubled region.
“I disagree with your assertion that Germain is being pragmatic. No-one can force people to like each other.”
indeed. i agree with that. but sometimes, if a situation gets out of control, one has to enforce a certain degree of law.
thats all. but maybe you are right – it could blow back in your face and make things worse.
still – it is interesting how Tebbit took the non-interventionist approach, and Greer took the neo-fascist approach.
“Blowing away not only over 200,000,000 people, but most of the worlds oil supplies. This is real mans “poker”. Even if the BBC wanted to tell you this to often, they would not be allowed to.”
i know gary i know.
this is never hinted at in the BBC news coverage.
case in point – moqtada al sadr. ever see a BBC tv news report that links him to the iranians? no.
real mans poker as you say. and the stakes are seriously high. the bbc coverage of iraq is always framed within the iraqi nationalist context, without even mentioning the iranian influece.
“Scott at the Ablution points out that this is a double – yesterday the Today programme treated us to a plug for George Clooney’s Syriana.”
newsnight review have a george clooney special tonight as well…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/review/4744574.stm
The current destablelisation of this country is the sort that was planned by the soviet-union prior to any war that took place during the “cold war” years.
This is now been done by not only socialists but also muslim socialists that have infiltration our Universities and the establishment in general. Including the BBC. The present goverment is having contortions trying to control this, while not offending their core voters. The BBC is also having fitts of agony, trying to do the same, while also seeming to defend its editorial independance. In short every thing seems now to be running on some kind of organised time-table. Some-one somewhere is pulling a lot of strings.
George Clooney … Newsnight … what a surprise. No doubt there’ll be a load of blather about how brave he’s being in taking on Senator McCarthy, as if McCarthy’s not long dead and Hollywood’s Boulevards have never been trodden by a liberal. I read recently that Theo van Gogh’s murder happened just a couple of weeks before the Oscars. Amid all the back slapping and luvvie air kissing not one presenter nor one recipient of an award mentioned him. When George Clooney or some other brave Hollywood liberal takes on Islam or makes a film about the life and death of Theo van Gogh I’ll take an interest.
Archduke
Thank you for saying I may be right.
However what concerns me the most is that I turn out to be always right,in the end. Which in this matter is making me quite shit my pants. I have never in my life been more concerned for the future prospects of mankind. This country better get its collective head together or things that you never would want to imagine are possible. Even the best outcome is not good. The worst is to bad to think about. If we win the poker game all we will win is our continual exsistance. If we lose a darkness will desend over the world. Darker than even German Nazis could have ever created. If the BLUFF is called ………..well letts not even go there.
We are just talking to ourselves, because it stops us boring our wives.
Gary Powell
Bravo, brother!
archduke
For you and your friends, an article by Julie Burchill. And don’t forget to browse the comments posted below it:
FOR WHAT WE ARE, NOT WHAT WE DO
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/683968.html
Gary Powell writes:
“The current destablelisation of this country is the sort that was planned by the soviet-union prior to any war that took place during the “cold war” years.”
A conspiracy too far.
As I’ve written here before, what actually happened was that the Left (and, yes, with Soviet help, it’s true) made education – and particularly Higher Education (sic) – a wholly owned subsidiary, during the 1930s, since when its grip has become a stranglehold.
As it became increasingly difficult to enter any trade connected with the liberal arts (and let’s not pretend they are professions), so those impregnated with Leftist views came to dominate and control the media in which they worked.
Now and again you get an apostate (the Hitchens brothers, Janet Daley, one or two others) but for the most part, the Left-liberal indoctrination received at University sticks for life.
What this means is that, no, there is not some sinister cabal of slab-jawed hoods, sitting in a basement in Dzerzhinsky Square planning next year’s school timetables, nor the editorial programme for Newsnight or Today. There doesn’t need to be.
Providing the Left holds the universities and providing recruitment to the media comes only from those seats of refined bullshit, then the job is done.
The wonder of the plan is that it survived the Soviet Union and, in fact, appears to show every sign of growing stronger, all on its very ownsome.
G Cooper
All what you say is true, but I still believe that some of what happens at the BBC, demostrations ,muslim leaders statements,and the general momentum of events are showing a pattern, of co-ordination.
Birds of a feather flock together……………they recruit in their own image.
Remember Max Weber ? If you want to enter a bureaucracy you must do so at the right trajectory or be ejected…………if you do not fit their parameters you are unable to penetrate the structure
That’s why choice is so important.
Coerced collectivism only clings on in places where money is extorted. Where people can choose, the light of capitalism makes these communist cockroaches run away.
Pete -> thanks for the link. hard hitting stuff.
“Especially when you live in a country where a sizable part of the print and broadcasting media are such guilt-ridden cretins when it comes to Islam that if they saw Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein sexually sharing their own grandmother, they’d swear the poor old lady asked for it.”
ouch. so true.
Sad to watch the demise of the Daily Mail, once a great conservative paper and now a pandering left-wing
clone of the Guardian, as most days the Mail is attacking our Royal Family or tells us why we should hate America for freeing the people of Iraq
Sharpsuit – I think the Mail just opposes anything that Blair supports. Perhaps when he retires they can get over their anger that a man who appears Tory* has actually kept the Tories* in opposition for a decade.
(* or Conservative – before I get compaints)
Pete
Thanks for the link. What an excellent article! And so true. That last sentence was the real clincher. I just noticed archduke has quoted it above.