Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:


Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

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127 Responses to Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

  1. GCooper says:

    Hillhunt writes:

    “So why shouldn’t the BBC cover, for instance, the Muslim world fully? ”

    That is precisely what the BBC does not do. Instead, it portrays an anodyne version of Islam, scrupulously picking its way around issues such as its inherent misogyny, hatred of homosexuality, bigotry against ‘infidels’, advocacy of the murder of apostates, cruelty towards animals, widespread encouragement of terrorism as a political tool – in fact almost negative quality.

    Clearly, given the the sort of appeasement your last paragraph advocates, the BBC’s approach would appeal to you.

    And that is rather the point.

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  2. Biodegradable says:

    Truth is that many of the comments on this site betray a bald intolerance of dissent from a narrow political (and racial) worldview.

    Islam is not a race.

    Would it be worth trying to find out how we might meet tolerant Islam to reduce the recruitment of fanatics and isolate those who remain.

    Hillhunt | 15.05.07 – 1:49 pm

    No. That’s up to Islam itself. We are not to blame.

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  3. BaggieJonathan says:

    Hillhunt

    All the main religions claim adherants from many races, but this is particularly true of Christians, muslims and Buddhists.

    Your assertion that in this blog there is a narrow racial worldview regarding islam is absurd.

    There are muslims of every colour and nationality.

    A religion is not a race, you need a new dictionary.

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  4. DumbJon says:

    Personally, I’m still waiting for the BBC to address the ‘tensions and the sense of victimisation’ that drives Combat 18 and the like. When’s someone going to reach out to tolerant Nazis ?

       0 likes

  5. BaggieJonathan says:

    Hillhunt

    BBC bias?

    UK Census 2001
    Christian – 71.6%
    No religion – 15.0%
    Refused to answer – 7.3%
    muslim – 2.7%
    Hindu – 1.0%
    Religions with less than 1% – 2.4%

    BBC news site coverage
    Christians in Europe – 0%
    Atheists in Europe – 0%
    Agnostics in Europe – 0%
    muslims in Europe – 100%
    Permanent fixture i.e.:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/europe/2005/muslims_in_europe/default.stm
    Hindus in europe – 0%
    Other religions in Europe – 0%

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  6. BaggieJonathan says:

    DumbJon:

    Quite.

    Presumably hillhunt, reith and their ilk want us to reach out to tolerant nazis in order to isolate extremist nazis and address the grievances of moderate paedophiles to tackle extremist padepohiles. Otherwise it would special treatment for one chosen small minority.

    Joke politics.

    Its about time someone pointed out that the emperor is stark naked!

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  7. Hillhunt says:

    That’s the thing I love about posting – the thrust of your argument gets lost in a petty disagreement about whether or not abuse of Muslims is potentially racist (because the overwhelming number of them are black, brown or Oriental) or just plain bigotted.

    My point was that in the Ulster troubles, it would have been very easy to demonise all Catholics, and to assume that because some of their preachers justified the Provos that all RCs were beyond trust, or as Biodegradable would have it “to blame”. Perhaps we could crow about the Orange song which bangs on about being “knee-deep in Fenian blood”, and condemn all Presbyterians as savages.
    Who was, I hear Biodegradable demanding, to blame for it all? The Prods for gerrymandering and denying the Fenians basic rights? The Loyalists who started burning “Taigs” from their homes? Or the Republicans for taking up the rifle and the bomb? Could it have been the centuries of botch and brutalism which built an unstable Ireland split along religious lines? Might extreme Islam – like the Provos and the Shankhill Butchers – have its grip on its recruits because of decisions taken about its own people, now and in the past, by infinitely more powerful societies, such as our own? If you’d grown up in Palestine, would you feel well inclined towards the Western world? Or might you be tempted by the way of Hamas and Hizbullah? What might make you feel different about that? Is that worth exploring?

    Nah. BBC = vile. That feels better, doesn’t it?

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  8. GCooper says:

    Hillhunt writes:


    Nah. BBC = vile. That feels better, doesn’t it?”

    Instead of laying down smoke, why don’t you answer the question?

    What of the countless (and I do mean countless) examples of blatant BBC bias in favour of Islam, and its refusal to confront Islamic abuses that are posted here every month?

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  9. Elbow says:

    Just watched the Freedom Magazine Scientology documentary online – I don’t care much for any organised religion, but the Beeb were pretty shocking here – they went for an all out assault on Scientology – the reaction of the Hollywood stars is pretty revealing, when they are all accused of being brainwashed. The crew enter churches and conferences unannounced (would they EVER enter a mosque unannounced?)

    Biased reporting at its worst.

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  10. BaggieJonathan says:

    Hillhunt

    “whether or not abuse of Muslims is potentially racist (because the overwhelming number of them are black, brown or Oriental) or just plain bigotted”

    Sadly you seem to be having a problem with numbers as well as needing a new dictionary.

    The overwhelming number must presumably lets say conservatively more than 90%.

    However of the world’s muslims many millions are Arabs, you know mohammed was one, they are not black, brown or oriental, they are white, swarthy but then so are greeks.

    You ignore the millions from european coutries like Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia.

    What about the millions of Iranians, Turks and Lebanese.

    Don’t believe me? – ask any one of these if they consider themselves black, oriental, brown or white.
    I know the answer you will get.

    As for bigotted tell me why you claim I am bigotted, better let me have the definition, I have lost faith in your dictionary.

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  11. disillusioned_german says:

    I also found Sweeney’s “interviewing technique” quite revealing. How often have we complained about the use of

    “some might say”
    “some say”
    “some people say”
    “some peoply might say”
    some people have been quoted as saying”

    and so on and so forth. Who are these “some”?

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  12. Hillhunt says:

    GCooper:

    I have only the present page to go on, but the muslim-bias pickings are thin – the tedious whinge about Somali headscarves, and a bizarre piece about Blue Peter, which is actually to do with upsetting children and not Islam.

    Where you tip over into loony tunes is in praising the fantastically dumb piece from the genius on The Inquirer: “the news is read by excitable young folk with impenetrable regional accents who find it impossible to sit down while spouting forth in some hateful modern argot about some soap star’s new hairstyle.”

    I watch lots of news, and I’ve never seen a piece on soap opera hairstyles. But the purest, most pungent aroma or miserable old-gittishness comes out of that quote: “excitable young folk with impenetrable regional accents.”

    What do we want? Newsreaders with dinner jackets and posh voices? When do we want them? Now.

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  13. Ralph says:

    Interestingly the Editors Blog post on the show has comments blocked: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/05/investigating_scientology_1.html

    How democratic of them.

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  14. GCooper says:

    Hillhunt writes:

    “I have only the present page to go on,”

    Rubbish! There is nothing (save indolence or prejudice) preventing you from reading earlier posts and yet you continue to make these sweeping generalisations, based, on your own admission, on almost no evidence.

    Meanwhile, a point to consider. You are, clearly, a person of a ‘liberal’ persuasion and say you find nothing wrong with the BBC. Indeed, you are fulsome in your praise for it.

    Can you not understand that that is precisely the point? Were the BBC properly unbiased, you would have qualms and misgivings. You could not endorse it with such enthusiasm, because it would not represent so wholly your view of the world.

    In other words, the very fact of its bias is established by your deep admiration.

    Or is that lost on you, too?

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  15. Hillhunt says:

    GCooper:

    Lazy, moi? Not guilty: Your own page apologises for the loss of previous monthly posts. Be glad to read them when they re-surface.

    BBC is not perfect. Nowhere is. But it does an astonishing job of reporting a complex, fast-changing world without the obvious corporate compromises of, say, the Murdoch media or the lame, platitudinous nonsense of mainstream US broadcasters.

    I’ve visited every continent and seen a lot of their news media. And in an imperfect world, the BBC serves us very well indeed.

    A South African friend once told me that, during apartheid, the SABC, determined to minimise “domestic terrorism”, failed to let commuters know about riots close to the Johannesburg motorways. Many people drove into trouble, astonished that their state broadcaster would keep them in the dark.

    If you want to hear only criticial stuff about Islam, watch BNP TV. The rest of us will rely on the BBC and ITN to do their best with the news, good or bad.

    Please keep me posted on your campaign against “excitable young folk with impenetrable regional accents”. Have you thought of asking Stannah StairLifts to sponsor it?

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  16. john says:

    disillusioned_german:
    I also found Sweeney’s “interviewing technique” quite revealing.

    It was pathetic. But, hats off to the brilliant editing in that Scientology film for exposing that. We know about the Hollywood connections of the Scientologists, it would seem that not only in their ranks do they boast of two exceptionally talented actors but clearly they have poached from Hollywood one or two brilliant editors!
    The BBC didn’t know what had hit them.
    I’ve never seen a BBC journalist depicted as a stuttering buffoon before, opening his mouth with the same nonsense!

    Re Scientology as an “evil cult” you know I’m so bitterly disillusioned with the BBC, look upon the soap operas they pump out daily, as some of the most nauseating examples of “brainwashing” we have , I’m dismayed too at the “brainwashing” of our youth, so much so that the old adage: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” has a vibrant tone.
    I had no idea that they were anti-psychiatry, and I’m sure for all of the wrong reasons, but that’s so “un-American” and gets my sympathy vote too. Similarly, when that Scientologist cited the American Constitution he was perfectly correct.

    I suggest Sweeney goes to Russia and investigates the resistance to the Scientologists there. Isn’t he all for human rights in Russia?

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  17. GCooper says:

    Hillhunt writes:

    “Your own page apologises for the loss of previous monthly posts”

    Whose page? I am merely a guest here. As a guest, I watched and listened before passing opinions.

    “Please keep me posted on your campaign against “excitable young folk with impenetrable regional accents””

    Whose campaign?

    “Have you thought of asking Stannah StairLifts to sponsor it?”

    Had you thought of reading and responding to individual comments, rather than indulging in spraygun commentary?

    Why do I waste my time arguing with trolls?

       0 likes

  18. Anonymous says:

    If there’s one organisation I trust less than the BBC to tell the truth, it’s Scientology. Their documentary looks like “a brilliant expose of BBC methods”, but I don’t believe a word of it. Not because it isn’t entirely plausible – we all know what the Beeb is like – but because it comes from them.

    The BBC is informed by its employees’ prejudices; Scientology has no compunction about bare-faced lying. Please bear that in mind.

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  19. Biodegradable says:

    My point was that in the Ulster troubles, it would have been very easy to demonise all Catholics, and to assume that because some of their preachers justified the Provos that all RCs were beyond trust, or as Biodegradable would have it “to blame”.

    Who was, I hear Biodegradable demanding, to blame for it all?
    Hillhunt | 15.05.07 – 2:46 pm

    My point, which you have chosen to ignore, is that we are not to blame for Islamist extremism any more than we were to blame for Irish terrorism of either stripe. Therefore it is not up to us to reach out.

    I was responding to your statement, which although it lacked a question mark I took to be a question:

    Would it be worth trying to find out how we might meet tolerant Islam to reduce the recruitment of fanatics and isolate those who remain.

    Would you mind telling us first of all where are we to find this mythical tolerant Islam?

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  20. BaggieJonathan says:

    Anonymous

    Yes, for honesty’s sake I have no shame in saying I would take the IBC over the scientologists 7 days out of 7.

    Hardly a ringing endorsement though is it.

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  21. Hillhunt says:

    Biodegradable:

    Try meeting some of our local Muslims. You might find many are, er, quite tolerant.

    The argument underlying my point on Ulster was that nations like ours can defeat terrorism by deciding, among other things, to change the conditions which provide a breeding ground for extremists.

    Should we, perhaps, consider working out why young men chose the bomb over a peaceful life, and try beyond that to minimise the sense of grievance which gives rise to such a destructive imuplse? As we did in Ireland, for example?

    Nah. Let’s blame the BBC. And campaign against “excitable young folk with impenetrable regional accents”.

    So much more satisfying…

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  22. AntiCitizenOne says:

    http://thewideawakes.org/archives/2007/05/15/sweeney-wheeney/

    “First up, there’s the bizarre charge that Sweeney and friends were being harassed because members of the the Church of Loon followed them around and filmed their activities. Huh ? Isn’t that pretty much what Sweeney does for a living ? MSM special pleading rarely gets more blatant than this. Let’s check the scorecard here: John Sweeney sticks a camera in the face of Joe Culthead: award-winning journalism, Culthead sticks camera in face of Sweeney: harassment. Ah yes!

    It gets even stranger when we get to the actual clip the BBC use to explain themselves. Sweeney keeps on calling the Church of Loon a cult, so their spokesman breaks off the interview, and Sweeney runs after him screaming about freedom of speech ? How does that work exactly ? In which deranged train wreck interpretation of freedom does the right to free speech translate to a duty for people to listen to an obnoxious member of the MSM ?”

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  23. Blithering Bunny says:

    >Should we, perhaps, consider working out why young men chose the bomb over a peaceful life, and try beyond that to minimise the sense of grievance which gives rise to such a destructive imuplse?

    But the BBC (and The Guardian and The Independent, etc.) constantly *exaggerates* the sense of grievance that these young men have by giving them the impression that Muslims both here and around the world are treated badly by the likes of the UK and the US.

    And the BBC rarely admits that Islam might be the “root cause” of their violence, even though it’s always quick to ridicule Christians.

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  24. AntiCitizenOne says:

    Hillhunt,

    Nice of you to admit that bombing people is the best way to get the left to give into any grievances you have.

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  25. Blithering Bunny says:

    Although I did praise the Panorama show I do agree with a lot of the comments here that are critical of the BBC. Not that I have much sympathy for the Scientologists. It was a bit like watching Iran and Iraq at war — as someone famously said, “Pity they can’t both lose”. In this case, perhaps they both did.

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  26. BaggieJonathan says:

    Hillhunt

    You propose minimising the (perceived) sense of greivance of the bombers.

    What next?

    Perhaps you would make concession to ETA.

    Let the Tamil Tigers have what they want.

    Agree with Bader Meinhoff if they reform.

    Accept the wishes of Black September.

    Allow the Russian mafia to have more of their own way.

    Concede ground to white supremacists.

    If you give in to demands every time someone bombs, either they will bomb again and demand even more, or their opponents will bomb to ‘return the serve’ (as the loyalists did in Ulster).

    What you are advocating is nothing less than appeasement, a policy discredited for 70 years.

    If thats all you can offer you are a troll and I’m done responding to you.

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  27. Block 813 says:

    “”Pity they can’t both lose”

    Classic…love it, and lets all hope so…..

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  28. Biodegradable says:

    The argument underlying my point on Ulster was that nations like ours can defeat terrorism by deciding, among other things, to change the conditions which provide a breeding ground for extremists.

    You mean, in the case of Islam, that we should accept Sharia law, accept that women, including “non-Muslim” women should wear the veil, for example. Stop supporting Israel’s right to exist and recognise Hamas?

    Perhaps we should also expel all Jews to somewhere else. exactly where could be a problem though.

    Should we, perhaps, consider working out why young men chose the bomb over a peaceful life, and try beyond that to minimise the sense of grievance which gives rise to such a destructive imuplse? As we did in Ireland, for example?

    That’s already been done. Islamist teachings about Jihad is why. The grievance is that UK is not yet a caliphate, but people like you are working on it.

    Nah. Let’s blame the BBC. And campaign against “excitable young folk with impenetrable regional accents”.

    So much more satisfying…
    Hillhunt | 15.05.07 – 5:32 pm

    I blame Islamism (note; that’s not the same as “Islam”), but I blame the BBC for covering it up.

    Good luck with your attempts at appeasement – as the Islamists say, “your grandchildren will be Muslims”.

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  29. Gordon_Broon_Eats_Hez_Bawgies says:

    I just watched the Scientology documentary….absolutely fell about laughing. A richly-deserved humiliation for the creep Sweeney.

    Classic.

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  30. What role do Austrians play in says:

    Manifest Destiny dictates a white-man’s prophecy – White-man’s world, white-man’s Apocolypse

    Twenty-somethings are conditioned to respond positively to magic::::::they are the extacy generation.
    This is not by accident. Expect they will be an important generation (“in charge”, etc) when the battle between the Anti-Christ and Second Coming of Christ ocurrs.
    This of course will be a 20-year war-revelry cycle distraction theater, and they want these people consumed by the high level of magic that will ocurr.
    This generation is The Damned.
    You’re all going to die PEAKING like you’re on X.

    Austrian Sigmund Freud is known as the father of psychoanalysis, yet people have (mental) health problems because of their disfavor, illustrating the preditory purpose of this discipline, this individual.
    These people.
    Of course Hitler was Austrian. Glock, maker of the semi-automatic gun favored by black street gangs such as the Bloods and the Crips, is Austrian.
    RedBull Energy drink, Buwdeiser both Austrian. What role do Austrians play in the cigarette industry??

    The Holocaust was foreshadowing, yet another example of the Jews sacrificing to help the disfavored::::
    1. 1492 exodus from Spain. Spain became evil – financed Columbus, initiated missionaries, USA (dumping ground of disfavored victimized by god), etc.
    2. Spread throughout Europe as clue to Christians worshipping a false god.
    3. “Quasi-Holocaust claim” contradicting boss.
    4. 5. 6. 7. etc. etc. etc.
    The Apocalypse (or an Apocalyptic event) will be initiated by an Austrian. When the national referendum to allow foreign-born individuals to run for president is introduced I recommend you DEFY and vote NO!! In the years prior to this vote the gods will send POWERFUL clues suggesting the IMPORTANCE OF DEFIANCE.

    Apex of irony in the Situaiton:::Jew calls in Quasi-Holocaust claim and takes boss, re-igniting the flames of anti-Semitism among blacks in the crucial years before the black holocaust:::

    ——————————————————————

    Italy’s boot is a clue showing the god’s intent with the Romans AND their active involvement::::The gods micromanaged the Eutruscans into their role as Romans, just as they micromanaged me with Artificial Intelligence into the role they scripted for this Situation.
    Oshkosh is a clue just as Lake Michigan and Green Bay are clues. Oshkosh is the ejaculate clue:::Life springs forth from this region.
    Expect your traditional Second Coming of Christ to come from the region. The gods dirtied me up but the Second Coming will be squeeky clean. Consistant with the possibility of matrilinial lineage it may be the mother’s family from the Lake Winnebago area fulfilling some “Manifest Destiny” theater:::The gods emphisize the evil, utilizing “magic” as they will during the Second Coming of Christ, and they minimize the good, as you see with boss, for the people’s collective favor has fallen sufficiently to justify this behavior, justified with the masculinization of women, sexual deviacy, etc.
    You see Manifest Destiny all around you (corporate)::::Manifest Destiny dictates a white-man’s prophecy:::::White-man’s world, white-man’s Apocolypse. Expect The End to ocurr EXACTLY as it reads in Revelations.
    When this happens in 30 years there will be no more black Jesus freaks. Attrition will have eliminated this population.
    This of course is a good sign for the bottom-of-the-barrel who will be betting on the Second Coming of Christ.
    Since the gods don’t respect Christianity I wouldn’t be surprised if they have the Second Coming lead the people to the center of a star, but this is far less likely with blacks out of the picture.

    Women are the favored gender:::Those who understand what it means to be a woman are already halfway there.
    The purpose of the masculinization of women of the last 40 years was to pave the way (justification) for The End, for it brought mankind’s collective favor down.

    This isn’t about reals and clones. This is about the brains and the brain-less:::The brain-less are people whose families have been OUT FOR GENERATIONS, families lucky enough to avoid this disturbing age and its accompanying abuses. ALL of them got out back when they were peasants, even the royal families and Pharrohs, and the gods used these tools to create this stratigic history here on Earth:::There is no such thing as Earthly-management. Also the gods replace strategic individuals frequently as a risk/benefit managerial tactic.
    This is the key which unlocks the god’s puzzle.
    The Italian brain-less clones were used as monsters because of their gross disfavor::They were the first group of people inflicted with Chrisitianity; incurred the scourge of opera, Italy’s hip hop; experienced the masculinzation of Eutruscan women, justified with Catholicism (I suspect this is why the gods inflicted them with the scouge of the preditory Roman Empire).
    I think the Jewish brain-less clones who were used as monsters were used as such out of convienience::::The Southern man is grossly disfavored, and the gods were able to manipulate their perception of Jews, creating ill-will, stoking anti-Semetic attitudes among the grossly disfavored.
    I don’t know why Austrian brain-less clones were used as monsters. Maybe for one of those reasons, maybe both, maybe neither.

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  31. Biodegradable says:

    Try meeting some of our local Muslims. You might find many are, er, quite tolerant.

    Hillhunt | 15.05.07 – 5:32 pm

    Go to http://www.google.com

    Type in tolerant Islam or tolerant Muslim.

    Now put your fingers in your ears and sing, “la-la-la, la-la-la-la… I can’t hear you…”

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  32. john says:

    What role do Austrians play in | 15.05.07 – 6:47 pm | #
    A song just for you, yes you!

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  33. rightofcentre says:

    What role do Austrians play in | 15.05.07 – 6:47 pm |

    1 – What are you talking about?
    2 – Whatever you are taking, stop it.

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  34. Ultraviolets says:

    “What role do Austrians play in | 15.05.07 – 6:47 pm | #”

    Ban that irritating cut ‘n’ paste troll.

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  35. Geoff Sturdy says:

    Suggest Hillhunt and others check out this website
    http://www.barnabasfund.org/
    My wife is a Pakistani Christian and knows full well what muslim ‘tolerance’ is like .
    As for his local muslims . well I suggest he google the term ‘taqiyah’ (dissembling) – a muslim is permitted to lie if it is to advance the cause of his religion

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  36. wayne says:

    HillHunt said:

    “Should we, perhaps, consider working out why young men chose the bomb over a peaceful life, and try beyond that to minimise the sense of grievance which gives rise to such a destructive imuplse? As we did in Ireland, for example?

    Your comparison with Ireland is completely ridiculous due to the fact that Islamists are proud to proclaim that they love death more than the west loves life.

    I can’t imagine that Adams, Mcguiness or Paisley ever went for a bomb belt fitting!

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  37. hillhunt says:

    How odd that you’d have to Google Muslims to find them. My mates Zaiba and Feisal and Siddique live in the real world. My world. And I see their tolerance and decency every time I talk to them. Strange, I know…

    Now, Appeasement. There’s a word.

    What happened in Northern Ireland? Did we bomb the Republicans back to the Stone Age? Damn them all because some of their priests were pro-Provo? Curse their foreign faith and tell them it was all their fault?

    Or did we – as well as policing rigorously – get rid of the Human Rights abuses; right the electoral wrongs? Reform the police so it was less obviously sectarian? Did we talk to their leaders, and negotiate away their weapons?

    Nothing justifies Islamist terrorism, but it might help a great deal to remove from the list of real grievances some which we can rectify, or at least mitigate. Otherwise more young Muslim lads will grow up, as generations of Irishmen did, prepared to do evil.

    Still, we have bigger fish to fry, don’t we? Who’ll join me in a march to silence those damn “excitable young folk with impenetrable regional accents”.

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  38. hillhunt says:

    Sorry, quick re-post:

    Wayne said: “I can’t imagine that Adams, Mcguiness or Paisley ever went for a bomb belt fitting!”

    Short memory, then: Bobby Sands and nine others – two, including Sands, elected to Parliament – died after a hunger strike in 1981. Thirteen others came within varied degrees of closeness to death.

    Served them right for having those “impenetrable regional accents,” I expect…

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  39. bob says:

    HH: yes, that’s very amusing that quote about impenetrable regional accents, positively Shakespearean in its ironic attack… Now, give it a rest.

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  40. wayne says:

    A comparison with hunger strikers? Don’t be such a fool!

    but it might help a great deal to remove from the list of real grievances some which we can rectify, or at least mitigate

    Real grievances, such as?

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  41. hillhunt says:

    Wayne. How’s Colleen?

    Grievances: Such as?

    Is it not this blog’s contention that the BBC consistently emphasies stories in which Muslims appear to suffer – headscarves in Somalia, Israeli actions on the West Bank, numerous issues arising out of Iraq etc… You could start there, I suppose.

    Where I grew up, some of the buggers even had “impenetrable regional accents”. The cheek of it…

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  42. Elbow says:

    Hillhunt, resolution was not reached in Northern Ireland by soul-searching and ticking off the list of terrorist grievances. It occurred because 9-11 made a lot of Irish-Americans, who were funding the IRA, realise the deadliness of all forms of terrorism. It is not what we have done wrong that will cause young Muslims to have a radical agenda. They bomb us because they hate us and our freedoms. They can’t accept the fact that a free, capitalist society can be successful while theirs is stuck in the dark ages. Remember the plot to blow up the Christmas market in Germany BEFORE 9-11? Please exlain that one, Hillhunt. And, yes, maybe your Muslim pals are tolerant. But a true Muslim, who is defined as one who follows the Koran to the letter, would probably consider them too tolerant to be a member of their faith. Islam is not designed for ‘tolerance,’ – in a true Muslim state non-believers are held down in a state of servile ‘dhimmitude’ – doesn’t seem very tolerant to me. The fact is, Hillhunt. yes, there are plenty of tolerant people who happen to have been born into a Muslim home, however that is because they have become more Westernised that Mohammed would have liked.

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  43. hillhunt says:

    Elbow:

    The Good Friday agreement which brought an effective end to Irish terrorism was, er, two whole years before 9-11.

    Muslims “hate our freedoms”, apparently. Oh, God, there are still people out there who take George Bush seriously.

    Tell you the freedom I hate: The one that lets people speak in “impenetrable regional accents”.

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  44. wayne says:

    HillHunt

    Grievances: Such as?

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  45. Elbow says:

    Hillhunt, I think you msunderstood. Although the Good Friday Agreement took place before 9-11, it was not until after 9-11 that the IRA put down their arms.

    You may wish to check your facts, Hillhunt, the last IRA bomb attack was in Ealing, London, on 3rd August 2001. Yes, after the Good Friday Agreement.

    And perhaps you would care to explain the ‘grievances’ that prompted the German Christmas Market plot.

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  46. DumbJon says:

    Never mind the Christmas market, Buddhist Thais, Animists in southern Sudan, Hindus in Bali and Christian East Timorese have all been murdered in large numbers – but doubtless in a tolerant way. No doubt they deserved it for failing to address the ‘root causes’.

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  47. Elbow says:

    It appears that Hillhunt’s skull is as impenetrable as the accents he refers to.

    Anyway, this is getting off topic, so I’m off. Night all.

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  48. hillhunt says:

    Sorry, Elbow, the Provisional IRA ceased its campaign prior to 1999. This ended the civil war proper. It’s true that a breakaway group tried several times to derail the process, but the majority of former terrorists turned their back on them; in effect the changed civil circumstances changed the appetite of Nationalists for violence.

    It’s important to understand why terrorists do what they do. Partly, it’s to hurt us. Partly, it’s to drive the peaceful mass of their potential supporters into their arms. If an act of terror brings reprisals, the sense of grievance grows. If a community feels forced to choose between its own gunmen and a hostile world, the theory goes, it’ll eventually choose the terrorists as its defenders. This is exactly how the IRA worked – casting themselves as defenders of a beleaguered Catholic community. Islamic terrorists want to make law-abiding Muslims drop their respect for host countries and climb on board the Islamist bandwagon. By whingeing every time the BBC reports in good faith on legitimate Muslim opinion, you contribute to that sense of alienation. See – the bastards hate us.

    Still, once we’ve wiped out those rag-head creeps from the Beeb, we can declare war on the real enemy, as endorsed by Biased BBC: Those “excitable young folk with impenetrable regional accents”.

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  49. Glauca says:

    UK Palestinians held a solidarity event for Johnston, saying, “he works for us”
    Indeed.

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  50. wayne says:

    HillHunt

    Grievances: Such as?

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