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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
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“it seems your main beef is that the BBC doesn’t call them “ragheads” as well. ”
no. we want terrorists to be called terrorists.
when terrorism is commited in the name of Islam, we want that to be mentioned too. on both points, there are numerous examples where the BBC obfuscates its headlines and refuses to make any connection between Jihadism and terror. in short, it has a policy of lying to the public.
*that* is what i object to.
“the ravages of the private sector”
that says it all about your socialist bias.
what God given right do the BBC have to my money?
What right do the BBC have to threaten me with jail if i refuse to pay their telly tax?
“refusing to call terrorists “terrorists” infers either support or sympathy for the terrorist cause. there is no other way of reading into that.”
I am currently reading BBC journalist Phil Rees’s book Dining with terrorists, in which the author ponders the question of using the word terrorist.
Since I am a frequent reader of this blog, the word ‘militant’ stands out each time it is used in the book.
Not surprisingly, the author often finds that the ‘militants’ are not the real terrorists but USA, Israel or the corrupt government fighting against the militants.
This kind of fake impartiality (or moral equivalence) can be characterized with the statement: “Five minutes to Hitler and five minutes to the Jews.”
GCooper
My argument is fairly obvious, your supposed dislike for invective is amusing given the tone of many commentators on this site. Anyway sice you seem to be missing my point it here it is again :
Your opinions are in the minority, and you don’t acheive anything with this blog. It’s the same old people popping up thread after thread, each with their predictably similar ideas, each lining up to spout their outrage at the “moonbat” lefties who run and work for the BBC. The BBC is not going away anytime soon, get used to it.
anon writes:
“The BBC is not going away anytime soon, get used to it.”
Really? In which case why does this site occupy so much of your time and attention?
Clearly, something must be troubling you.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/5409444.stm
Police are appealing for calm after three nights of violence at a Berkshire dairy owned by a Muslim family.
Here’s a case of the beeb using the M word, but only because they see the muslims as victims.
Pete_London | 05.10.06 – 1:25 pm
I detect a whiff of the 60s unwashed hippie radical in all off this. When half a generation is allowed to mature with a silly, romantic view of the likes of Che Guevara and the PFLP, it’s gonna come back at you one day.
I saw a good Che T-shirt on a website somehere. It showed the classic Che pose with the face replaced by a skull and the words “He’s dead, get over it”
My sentiments exactly.
GCooper
“The BBC is not going away anytime soon, get used to it.”
Really?
Yes. Really.
You can’t write stuff like this:
Well done, i think you’ve nicely summed up this entire site and most of its proponents (I say most because some are probably quite dangerous racists and not amusing in the least), half of whom don’t even sound like they live in the UK.
Bleedin’ foreigners, they come over here to our websites and they can’t even speak proper. Send ’em all back home and let have real British people here denouncing all that racism.
Liberalism: because making sense is such a drag.
A contender for the 2006 most tendentious headline of the year award ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/5399808.stm
State links annoy private schools
Annoy ?
The word “annoy” does not appear to be a quote from the chap’s speech (and even if it is, it should appear in quotes.) The headline is presumably intended to make you believe that private schools don’t want anything to do with state ones. But that’s was not at all what the chap was complaining about.
He told the HMC’s annual conference in Manchester that many believed that ministers were trying to “hijack” the brand of independent schools “on the cheap”. He called for a formal service contract which recognised the contribution independent schools made to the national economy. “The government’s view of partnership is not what partnership really ought to mean,” he said. “It represents a superficial and one-way interest in bridge-building between the two sectors.”
The complaint is not “bog off you state oiks” it’s that the government is simply trying to rip off private schools by failing to pay a reasonable price for the services it wants private schools to provide. He’s complaining that the government’s idea of a “partnership” is “you give, we take.” (This sounds very similar to the Inland Revenue’s approach to “partnership” with its “customers.”)
Incidentally, there’s a nice threat down the bottom of the report :
A DfES spokesman said the partnership scheme had been a success – but the government wanted more.
“As Alan Johnson stated recently some private schools own excellent facilities, from science labs to playing fields, often under-used. “We want these schools to open their gates to all children in the community – surely this is what their charitable status is for.”
Charitable status has nothing whatever to do with being available to the whole community, it has to do with pursuing charitable objects of which education is one. But this little aside does enlighten us about the true nature of the government’s approach to co-operation between private and state education sectors. It is the relationship between the sheep and the jackal.
“Clearly, something must be troubling you.”
It’s a common theme here that people that find fault with comments/posts here are “troubled”, or more usually some secret paranoid Beeb cyber-hitmen.
It’s usually accompanied by the boast that this site is terrifically important and highly influential on elements of Beeb editorial, hence the sending of dark armies of dangerous leftoids.
Perhaps some people just like to debate against people they disagree with. It’s not an uncommon phenomenon in the blogosphere. No need to get all quack psychologist about it.
Dumbjon: What an apporpriate name. Clearly someone who does not live in the UK can have little gripe about the licence fee. Nothing to do with racisim.
Liberalism: because making sense is such a drag.
Dumbjon | 05.10.06 – 2:29 pm | #
LOL!
Clearly someone who does not live in the UK can have little gripe about the licence fee.
No, but as somebody who lives abroad I can and do gripe about BBC bias on the grounds that the BBC is seen as impeccable and honest, when it isn’t. BBC bias has an effect way beyond the confines of our little island home.
Nothing to do with racisim.
Anon | 05.10.06 – 2:35 pm
Are you the same “Anon” who was so concerned on another thread about black Jews and whether Jews were a race or not?
Anon
“The views of most of the country effectively push your own hard right agenda onto the fringes”
Really, recent opinion polls suggest to me that people are fed up with muslims and mosques and the constant pampering to them by the government (even with the “Ministry of Truth” pushing their lies all the time).
You say You regard anyone who disagrees with your world view as being of somewhat lower intelligence but from your post that is exactly the view YOU have about people here. You are here to preach (because you think you’re superior) but people aren’t listening.
“Really, recent opinion polls suggest to me that people are fed up with muslims and mosques and the constant pampering to them by the government”
I’d be interested to see the evidence for that. I’m sure people worry about the influence of extremist muslims, but “fed up with muslims and mosques”?
And yes, this blog is typically towards the right side of the right wing. From what I can gather, the majority of commenters don’t appear to be liberal or labour voters and wouldn’t occupy much of the centre-right space Cameron is aiming for.
Anon,
if the BBC viewing figures carry on in freefall then they won’t be around much longer.
You’d best get your CV ready (and you may as well leave it anonymous).
I wonder why the BBC, if it is as crap as you say, has that reputation ?
Bidegradable – the jews are not a race, get over it and just for once be big enough to admit you were wrong. Are you now implying that I am racist as well as an anti-semite ? Or a liberal as ritter claims ? Give it up.
Francis
Anon,
if the BBC viewing figures carry on in freefall then they won’t be around much longer.
The BBC will outlive you and this blog, I’ll bet money on that.
“You’d best get your CV ready (and you may as well leave it anonymous).”
Now we learn that falling BBC viewer numbers is going to affect the UK retail financial sector as well ? I refer you to my comments about heads up arses.
DifferentAnon,
you’d like to see evidence?
How else would you explain the rise of support for parties like the BNP? Is it because they have a better transport policy?
Of course this blog is more right wing. It’s to do with the problem of the left wing bias of the BBC. Left wingers wouldn’t really complain about that would they? What are you talking baout????
I really don’t understand your obsession with arses. Although you being a liberal, maybe I should.
Rather than harping on about hard right agendas and arses why not answer the question that GCooper posted and you originally replied to in double speak.
Why do the BBC refuse to call a “terrorist” a “terrorist” when they are muslims. Please, in words the less intelligent of us can understand.
The BBC’s viewing figures may be in freefall but they won’t go away. The leftist coterie which runs the BBC realises that the BBC is the jewel in the PC crown, and that direct access to the wallets of the population gives it powers of money-raising not open to any other broadcaster. Unfortunately, the BBC won’t go away, nor will it reform. The best that can be done is to fact-check their ‘reporters’, expose their lies and ridicule them. From what I see here, and the lefty gadflies attracted, B-BBC is doing quite a good job.
From what I can gather, the majority of commenters don’t appear to be liberal or labour voters and wouldn’t occupy much of the centre-right space Cameron is aiming for.
DifferentAnon | 05.10.06 – 3:01 pm
I was a life-long Labour voter and self-confessed socialist/liberal until a few years ago, until I realised that the left had completely lost the plot. That does not mean I would describe myself as right-wing now, although you no doubt would.
“Anon”, from your link:
But setting aside the emotional issues, Jews are clearly not a race.
Race is a genetic distinction, and refers to people with shared ancestry and shared genetic traits. You can’t change your race; it’s in your DNA. I could never become black or Asian no matter how much I might want to.
I provided a link yesterday showing the common DNA in Ashkenazi Jews. I am not wrong, you are.
Different Anon writes:
“It’s a common theme here that people that find fault with comments/posts here are “troubled”, or more usually some secret paranoid Beeb cyber-hitmen.”
It is perfectly obvious from the way Anon’s posts teeter on the edge of ad hominem attacks and barely controlled invective, that he is deeply bothered by the existence of this site.
He insists that the site has no effect on public debate about the BBC. If he really believes that, why bother about us? Why get so exercised about it? It’s both self-contradictory and completely illogical.
Francis
I really don’t understand your obsession with arses. Although you being a liberal, maybe I should.
I was referring to you arrogant assumption, alluded to by DifferentAnon, that the rantings on here hold sway within the BBC.
What difference does it make if they call them “terrorists” or “bombers”, do you suppose that people are too stupid to decide for themselves the nature of the attack ? The BBC refer to the London tube bombers as “bombers”, only in your twisted mind is this some sort of vindication or legitimisation of their act. They didn’t refer to the IRA as “catholic” terrorists or to the UDA as “protestant” terrorists despite the fact that the violence was carried out in the name of religious freedom.
Terrorist has become a somewhat nebulous term these days with countries disagreeing over which groups are and are not terrorists. For example most countries in the world do not regard Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation yet you would have the BBC reporting that they are. Would that not be a clear case of bias, in that they would explicitly favour their own governments view ?
Biodegradable
Admit you are wrong ! What were sammy davis junior and Connie Chung before converting to Judaism ? Jews !? According to you.
Anon
What I said was, why don’t they call them “terrorists”. I or anyone else here has NOT said why aren’t they called ‘muslim terrorists’.
Catholic and protestant terrorists WERE called “terrorists” as you say, now please answer, why aren’t muslims called “terrorists”. NB I don’t care why they’re not called “muslim terrorists”, I want to know why they are not called “terrorists”. Is that clear enough?
Your explanation about ‘terrorist’ being nebulous is farcical. Whenever you have 1 side attacking another then you will always get 2 sides to the story. Does that mean the word terrorist no longer has a place in the English language because you’ll always get 2 sides, one in agreement and one in diagreement?
Should the Terrorism Act 2000 be renamed to the ‘2 sides having a difference of opinion act’
By the way, I would label Hezbollah as terrorists.
“If he really believes that, why bother about us? Why get so exercised about it?. It’s both self-contradictory and completely illogical.”
Come off it. If the pre-requisite of debating something was that it had to be important, pubs would go out of business tomorrow.
Wow, lots of comments since I last checked in.
“But (just for the hell of it) let me ask our little coterie of BBC fans (Reith, Anon and MisterMinit) a question I’ve asked before and to which there is always a resounding silence.
How many external media commentators used by the BBC on news, arts and other topics come from the Guardian and Independent, compared with the Times and Telegraph? And how does the BBC square that with the respective circulations of the newspapers concerned?”
First of all, I’m not a BBC “fan” – I don’t recall ever defending the BBC (nor John Reith) on this site. And secondly I have no idea about the answer to your question, but I’d love to know what it is.
archduke: “refusing to call terrorists “terrorists” infers either support or sympathy for the terrorist cause”
I’m not sure that it does necessarily, I think it’s just the BBC (along with a lot of the British media) trying to be as objective as possible. I think to suggest any sypathy for the perpetrators is not fair.
Personally, I think that there is a predefined and accepted definition of “terrorist” and “terrorism” and the BBC should use it when this definition fits the events – which is more often than they actually do. To be fair though, the BBC does sometimes use the T-word.
I’ve got a few questions for you archduke:
1) If not using the T-word equates to sypathy and/or support, then does this mean that the Telegraph sypathised with this attack:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/16/wirq16.xml
and this one:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/28/usuicide.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/08/28/ixportaltop.html
as both were written in the BBC style, only using the T-word in quotes?
2) Would it be fair to label Churchill as a terrorist as he was complicit in the Allied bombing of Dresden, or anyone involved in the fireboming of Tokyo and the dropping of the A-bombs?
Francis
By the way, I would label Hezbollah as terrorists.
So – are you saying the BBC should too ? Just because you do ? The majority of people in the world it seems disagree, hence in using the “T” word, the BBC would be expressing the opinion of the minority of governments who do class hizb. as a terrorist organisation, and not the opinion of the majority who do not. You may not like it, or agree with it, but that isn’t bias.
Anon (all of them):
you really are spineless cases on the terrorist angle. Using the blowing up of innocent civilians as one’s prime means of attack, and even stating clearly that this is your intention, makes you a terrorist. Why can’t you understand that? And so why can’t the BBC term the perpetrators of Beslan, or the 7/7 tube atrocities, or any of Hamas or Hezbollah’s attacks on civilians ‘terrorism’? Your next step, of course, will be to bring up Dresden – so, ok, yes, go ahead and term that ‘terrorism’ too… and, as you suggested elsewhere with reference to use of the word ‘bombers’, we’ll let the general public make up its own mind about whether you’re right
The majority of people in the world it seems disagree,
which is it people or governments ?
and if its people, how do you know
this.
What not to wear
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/10/what_not_to_wear.html
“What would we do if a newsreader of Muslim origin returned from holiday in Pakistan and said that from now on she wants to read the news wearing a headscarf?”
I bet the BBC can’t wait to appoint their first jilbab wearing muslim newsreader.
Jack Straw wouldn’t be having any of that though.
Straw asks women for veil rethink
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5410472.stm
“Muslim women in the UK who wear full veils make “better, positive relations” between communities “more difficult”, Commons leader Jack Straw has said.
Concealing a face was “a visible statement of separation and of difference”, the Blackburn MP wrote in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph.”
I thought the point of the burkah, hajib etc. was to hide the bruises inflicted by the muslim husbands.
gordon-bennett
The last I heard, current islamic thinking was for a man to avoid leaving signs of a good thrashing on one of his wives:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3396597.stm
Imam rapped for wife-beating book
A Muslim cleric who wrote a book that advised men how to beat up their wives without leaving incriminating marks has been sentenced by a Spanish court. Mohamed Kamal Mustafa was given 15 months in jail, which he will not serve as Spanish law suspends sentences of under two years for first offences. Mustafa’s book, Women in Islam, sparked outrage among women’s groups when it was published three years ago. In his defence, the imam said he was interpreting passages from the Koran.
If ever a book needed burning …..
Biodegradable
Admit you are wrong !
No. You are wrong.
What were sammy davis junior and Connie Chung before converting to Judaism ?
I have no idea.
Jews !? According to you.
Anon | 05.10.06 – 3:48 pm
I haven’t said that.
Of course one can convert to Judaism. There are two women converts in my family which means their children are Jewish.
However you began this argument by denying that Jews can trace a direct lineage back to Israel and that Judaism is only a religion and not a “race”. The truth is that Jews belong to both a religion and a demostrable genetic lineage which can be, and indeed has, been traced back to the Middle East.
You would know that if you had bothered to look at the links I provided.
Finally, and that means I will not indulge you further on this topic, I find it most amusing that you, a willfully ignorant fool, should insist on telling me, a Jew, what makes a Jew and what does not.
You should take Bryan’s advice and look deep inside yourself before any further attempts at categorizing me or anybody else here.
Pete_London
Interesting that you mention that Iman. Spanish TV news today had the Iman of the Malaga mosque, who spoke in defence of Mohamed Kamal Mustafa, suggesting that Spaniards cease to celebrate their traditional “Moros y Cristianos” festivals which mark the “reconquista”.
I’m waiting to see how the Spaniards will react, so far they’ve bowed to appeasement. One group of “Moros y Cristianos” will be performing in New York, but only in Christian costumes for fear “of offending Muslims” (read: fear of beheading) and another town has agreed to not blow up the figure of Mohammed as their tradition demands.
I haven’t seen anything about this on al-Beeb.
Exploding Mohammeds Canceled in Spain
Moros & Cristianos fiestas under attack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moros_i_cristians
http://www.morosycristianos.com/fiestas-32.s.html
http://www.donquijote.org/culture/spain/fiestas/morosycristianos.asp
Bryan | 05.10.06 – 11:48 am
Bryan
I do little else on this blog except address specific allegations of BBC bias.
In almost every case I find them groundless. Sometimes mystifyingly so.
There is a discernible pattern to them. Most have nothing to do with the BBC’s traditional core activity of broadcasting but involve nit-picking objections to news items posted on the BBC website, as often as not directed at stories with little or no input from BBC staff correspondents but based on news agency copy, court proceedings, or an official announcement.
Another common vice here is • having failed to find anything biased in a BBC story • to allege bias on the grounds of some imagined ‘omission’. Sometimes this is even done when there are hundreds more stories on the same subject still extant on the web to which any interested reader can link easily enough and which contain the supposedly omitted facts. Then there is the tendency to allege that because something isn’t reported on the website, the BBC hasn’t reported it • ignoring the fact that the news website is a small part of its news operation employing a tiny fraction of its staff.
But, as if these habits were not silly enough, there is a constant reiteration of the laughable allegation that BBC staff are sympathetic to Islamist extremism.
I know hundreds of BBC journalists of many different outlooks and worldviews. I have never met one who had the slightest enthusiasm for radical Islamism.
It is true that I promised to come back to you once I had heard the Allan Little programme. I haven’t heard it yet. Sometimes I tell myself that I must really get round to it soon • but every time you go and say something so disobliging and discourteous in one of your comments, I become reluctant to bother.
It’s then that I remember you are not a UK resident, taxpayer or licence-fee payer, but a free-rider who is looking his gift horse in the mouth.
For example most countries in the world do not regard Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation…
Anon | 05.10.06 – 3:44 pm
The message certainly got through to you.
http://www.snappedshot.com/archives/274-Hezbullah-vs.-the-Blogosphere.html
Just to remind you what they look like:
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/salutes.JPG
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2006/09/11/hezbollahs_child_soldiers.php
It’s then that I remember you are not a UK resident, taxpayer or licence-fee payer, but a free-rider who is looking his gift horse in the mouth.
John Reith | 05.10.06 – 6:21 pm
I’m so glad I too pay not a penny towards your salary, “John Reith”!
Anon,
you’re probably one of those deluded souls that also think Hamas are not terrorists, yet when they’re not killing innocent Israelis, they start killing themselves.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/5319186.stm
These sort of people (terrorists) are never happy unless they’re instilling terror into somebody. Therefore they are terrorists. You say the majority of people don’t think so, that is utter rubbish.
The BBC and not the story;
“Muslim women in the UK who wear full veils make “better, positive relations” between communities more difficult, Commons leader Jack Straw has said. Failing to show the mouth and nose was “a visible statement of separation and of difference”, the MP wrote in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph. Now he asks women who meet him if they would consider taking off their veils.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5410472.stm
Correct me if I am wrong but the way I see it Jack Straw is saying that the inability to see somebody’s face when they are talking to you makes it harder to trust that person. He doesn’t tell the person wearing a veil to take it off. He asks if they will consider taking it off.
So how does the BBC report on this story;
“But the Islamic Human Rights Commission claimed the Blackburn MP’s request would cause selective discrimination.
And;
And Halima Hussain from Muslim Public Affairs Committee asked: “Who is Jack Straw to comment on negative symbols within a religion that is not his own? “The point is these women have chosen to wear the veil and it’s their own decision. It’s not something that has been forced upon them,” she told BBC News 24. “These are not oppressed women. I don’t think he’s right to say this at all.”
Hang on BBC any decent journalist would have made clear to the objectors in that piece that the removal of the veil is the onus of the wearer. The choice is theirs. Jack Straw doesn’t make them take it off and that is made very clear at the start of that report.
So why does the BBC report give the impression that it he makes them take it off in which to garner more than one response from the Islamic world.
P.S
On a different note. I was reading the Stars and stripes the other week. (American military newspaper) the headline.
Muslims mad again (This time it’s the Pope)
Laugh I nearly cried.
Mr Reith wrote;
It’s then that I remember you are not a UK resident, taxpayer or licence-fee payer, but a free-rider who is looking his gift horse in the mouth.
I could say the same about the BBC Mr Reith when talking about free-riders.
Or even people of a certain faith?
I’m so glad I too pay not a penny towards your salary, “John Reith”!
Biodegradable | 05.10.06 – 6:44 pm |
yeah….and after my grandad paid for your education.
yeah….and after my grandad paid for your education.
My grandfather, and my father, paid for my education, and probably yours too.
John Reith, your grandad was probably a lazy, good for nothing sitting at home receiving his white feathers.
Please could commenters refrain from personal abuse. It contributes nothing to the argument.
Reith probably thinks biodegradable is sitting on the costa del crime playing golf with blaggers and dodgy coppers.
actually, he’s probably running a business.
Something about that ‘gobby NCO’ remark tells me that you’re probably wrong biodegradable – I don’t suppose the reith family troubled the taxpayer for the cost of his schooling.
Before I started with Phil Rees’s book ‘Dining with terrorists’, I read the reviews. Amir Taheri’s review at
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/13495
is worth reading. Mr Rees does not seem to come to grips with the word ‘terrorist’. However Mr. Taheri provides an example:
“But, there are also tragic scenes. On one occasion in Algiers, Rees is shocked when he sees the corpse of a teenage girl, her throat slit by Islamists. “Why did they kill her?” Rees asks the girl’s mother. “Because she refused to wear the hijab,” comes the answer.
Well, Mr Rees, there is your definition of terrorism.”
This is here to tell you that terrorism is not about terrorizing Western governments or local corrupt ruling elite, but the purpose of terrorism is to frighten common people into submission (=islam) so that islamists can promote their hate-filled agenda without opposition.
anderson cooper – remember him? the cnn guy who lifted the lid on Hezbollah managing the media?
well, he’s filed a report from the Congo
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2006/10/this-is-not-fairy-tale.html
just pointing this out as the drive-by media seem to have Darfur as the “flavour of the month”. and warning – its not a pleasant report either , so make sure your pour a drink before reading it. strong stuff.
“I thought the point of the burkah, hajib etc. was to hide the bruises inflicted by the muslim husbands.
gordon-bennett | ”
i wouldnt be surprised if thats exactly what Jack Straw , who still does local surgery work, is probably trying to sort out/help. thats probably the real reason.
“And yes, this blog is typically towards the right side of the right wing. From what I can gather, the majority of commenters don’t appear to be liberal or labour voters and wouldn’t occupy much of the centre-right space Cameron is aiming for.
DifferentAnon | 05.10.06 – 3:01 pm ”
My own case – Ex-communist, former Blairite and now a Cameroon.
hmm… bit wrong on that assumption mate. i think you’ll find a right pot pourri of backgrounds on here.
then again, beeboid apologists like yourself can only see the world in left-right, black-white terms , where you are always right , and everyone else is wrong.
its a symptom of all that class struggle stuff. you’ll get over it , eventually.