From Michael Buerk’s intro to the Moral Maze this week (via Bishop Hill):
“not long ago, to question multiculturalism… risked being branded racist and pushed into the loathesome corner with paedophiles and climate change deniers”
Is Buerk really comparing climate change “deniers” with paedophiles, or is this observation from Saul Jacka in the comments at Bishop Hill closer to the mark?
With respect, isn’t Michael Buerk something of a controversialist?
In other words, isn’t he quite capable of implying what he doesn’t mean to have a dig at some of his bien-pensant BBC colleagues?
On past form, he is certainly capable of taking such a line
UPDATE: Cranmer:
Michael Buerk is not himself equating anthropogenic climate change deniers and those who question the doctrine and policy of state multiculturalism with paedophiles: he is lampooning those of his BBC colleagues who do so habitually.
I’m sure that the lunatic Prince of Wales considers we sceptics as being in a similar bracket to those other mentioned individuals. He who thinks that the sea level is rising, and the Mediaeval Warm is some sort of royal spa in Warwickshire.
Why do they hate us so much I wonder?
True believers through history have butchered their bloody way through that history leaving a trail of misery in their wake. Burning people alive to torture to persecution, the true believer sees a threat to their beliefs and all they have is the age old rage and timeless hatred.
Faith is a double edged sword bringing out the very best and the very worst in human nature. They believe they are saving the world, in the face of real evidence they still believe and when faced with proof positive they will still believe, they are the stormtroopers of the new age and we the unbelievers are standing in their way.
Slavery is the new freedom, hatred is the new love, revenge is the new forgiveness, bigotry is the new tolerance, ignorance is the new wisdom and fear is the new confidence. its a topsy turvey world and like a broken record its playing its tune over and over again through the millenia, will we ever learn to just nudge the needle?
BTW Who would have thought that the most effective republican destroyer of the monarchy would be a Prince in waiting, he wants that crown and f*ck the consequences. He is so stupid he cannot see he has just made enemies of his familys natural supporters and temporary allies of his familys natural enemies. So twisted he is sucking up to people who hate him and the crown he craves above all else.
There is the term useful idiot and Charles is the very perfection of it.
There you go again, Cassandra, painting your broad brushstrokes connecting ill-defined concepts such as ‘faith’ or ‘belief’ with murder or terrorism.
Everybody believes in something, whether it’s scientific atheism or fundamentalist Islam and, quite often, they are willing to kill others who disagree with them.
The Roman Catholic church killed millions who disagreed with her and was convinced she did it for God. Stalin said he was a communist but probably believed in nothing except himself and killed millions because he could. Mao professed his belief in the cultural revolution and also killed millions.
Many millions of women in the West butcher their own children in the womb because their secular humanistic ‘beliefs’ inform them that it’s alright to do so. What’s my point? That every human being believes in something and every human being can justify killing in the name of what they believe in,
Anglichan
Talk about painting with a broad brush, since when did the Roman Catholic Church kill “millions” of people who disagreed with her?
james1070 don’t take offence. I do not consider myself as an opponent of the Catholic Church. The church in 2011 is not the same as the church of even 1911.
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How many deaths has the Catholic church caused?
It’s hard to be precise. Answers.com claims from tens of millions up to billions but qualifies this with problems of definition of cause and problems of counting. There is also a problem of why and how the church caused death.
Wikipedia writes So great was the devastation brought about by the 30 Years War war that estimates put the reduction of population in the German states at about 15% to 30%.
I grant you that there were two sides in every War and there were other issues than Catholic vs. Protestant but I’m making a point that even if the Church was responsible for only half that is a lot of death.
Deaths directly or indirectly from missionary activity (these examples come from an atheist site and I only include it for argument) Until the Reformation all Christian missionaries were Catholic. Sometimes the missionaries killed directly, sometimes they directed the killings and sometimes they were only the inspiration and justification. What is clear is that the local Catholic Church and in Rome did not oppose the killing of ‘heathen natives’ and rather than being simply neutral often incited them.
Sometimes deaths were the unintended consequences of Catholic ‘disagreement’. Not all ‘witches’ were really ‘heretics’ but they were for the church. n Scotland the Witchcraft Act, equating witchcraft with heresy, was introduced by Mary, Queen of Scots and only abolished in 1736
Death may be indirect. For example, there is a theory that Medieval slaughter of cats as part of the campaign against witchcraft made a huge contribution to the growth of the rat population and thus indirectly to the Black Death.
Add to this the Crusades; the various Inquisitions, the early period of Christian dominance in Romeand Anglichan’s statement does not seem so wild.
@deegee
Answers.com is not really the fount of all knowledge
Firstly the 30 years war was not carried out by the Catholic Church. It was a power struggle for central Europe. If it had been religious in nature why did Catholic France fight on the side of Protestant Sweden against Catholic Austria?
Scotland was a Protestant country country when witches were being executed. King James of the Bible fame wrote the standard witch hunting textbook of that era. Mary Queen of Scots was a Catholic but she was deposed by Knox et all. The first woman to be executed for being a witch in England was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a Protestant. The Witchcraft Laws were first introduced into England by Henry VIII a Protestant.
The cat thing is a modern myth.
And if it weren’t for the Crusades we’d all be wearing burkas, and it looks like we’ll all be wearing burkas very soon.
The Albigensians (Cathars) were Christians, but would not accept Roman Catholic rule, and taxes. The beginning of violence was on command of Pope Innocent III in 1209. Beziérs, in 1209, was destroyed and all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Number of victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their ‘heretic’ neighbours and friends) estimated between 20,000-70,000.
Subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars, probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France, were exterminated. It is estimated one million victims in Cathar ‘heresy’ alone,
After the war ended in 1229 the Inquisition was founded in 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding ‘heretics’ including Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects were exterminated and is estimated to total at least hundred thousand victims. This total includes the Spanish inquisition but excludes victims in the New World.
http://articles.exchristian.net/2002/10/how-many-people-have-been-killed-by.php
@Anglichan<img src=”images/icon10-external-url.png”/>
Now you are downgrading your claims, you said “millions”. You also use the word estimate alot which basically means a lucky guess. The Cathar situation was a civil war, and the figure of one million, there wasn’t that many people living there at that time, you are making things up as you go along. You wouldn’t think the Church had the time to found the University system, hospital system and fund the Renaissance.
I’m not downgrading my claims. I’m posting some info about a very small part of RC history and the figures I found on a website. You’re just stonewalling with statements like, ‘there wasn’t that many people at that time’. How do you know that? Your argument is with the creators of the site-take it up with them. This Biased BBC site is supposed to be about calling to task the bias at the BBC. You seem to be cut from the same cloth.
James wrote, ‘You wouldn’t think the Church had the time to found the University system, hospital system and fund the Renaissance.’
Just off the top of my head, I think it’s highly unlikely that the RC church founded, or funded, the hospital service or the university system, in the UK, at least. But, even if it had done, and even if it funded the Renaissance, that still wouldn’t wash the blood off its hands.
You sound like one of those East Enders, talking about the Krays. ‘ Yeah, they done a few bad fings but, lovely boys: good to their muvver an’ the old folk could walk the street at night wivout bovver’
Anglichan
Oxford and Cambridge Universities were founded by the Church in the Middle Ages. St Thomas’ and St Barts hospitals London were founded by the Church in the Middle Ages. At the Reformation there were at least 6 hospitals serving Londoners. Henry VIII had them closed and given to his mates. Due to protests St Thomas’ and st Barts were reopened about ten years later.
You have a point and so do I, yes I paint a broad picture and leave it to the reader to fill in the details. People read my words and are quite capable of discerning the general direction of travel and then making their own way from there. The aim is to stimulate a response which I can then learn from, its a simple technique and I have learned much from it. My posts such as they are are merely sign posts to indicate to others who have a much greater grasp of the greater picture.
Apologies to the ladies in advance, but Chuck is such an eco-loon that he probably thinks the Mediaeval Warming Period is something to do with what he had in mind when he said he wished he was a tampax.
For the heir to the British throne to go to Brussels and virtually plead with the EU to use its power to impose his Greeno-wacko policies on the UK surely has to be tantamount to sedition? Even if not, it totally disqualifies him in my view on constitutional grounds for the succession.
Maybe Mr. Buerk should go to some lengths to clarify himself, just to settle any misunderstanding..
I suspect it would not be good for his career to do so.
If you know Michael Buerk’s output you’ll know Cramner has this right.
Fan bloody tastic! Good boy.
Only listened to the MM last night on i-Player, but His Grace is 100% correct – what I interpreted Buerk as saying was that any erstwhile questioning of multiculturalism was likely to engender the same rabid condemnation on the part of its defenders as that directed at paedophiles and AGW-CO2 climate-change sceptic. I didn’t feel he was equating the latter two at all.
The prog, incidentally, was quite a good discussion. Douglas Murray was superb, especially in putting down former Revolutionary Communist Party member and all-round cultural-marxist Kenan Malik for twisting Murray’s words: and the entire panel gave a pretty rigorous grilling to the lefty cleric who postulated that in order to treat everyone equally, you had to treat some of them more favourably. Guess which ones?
True, Michael Buerk was being sarcastic.
Going back to when Michael Buerk was on that weasel Bacon show. As I have already stated Bacon was hugely disrespectful. But I never realised what a big shot Buerk was. Bacon in that interview never mentioned (and I hope I didn’t miss this) that Buerk was the man who brought the worlds attention to the Ethiopian famine in 1984.
What is fascinating is that in the famous news report he gave back in 1984 he is never seen on camera. You just hear his voice over, even though he was there. Now if this were to happen today, you can guarentee that the beeboid would shove their face on the report to make a name for themselves. This man is old school, he allowed the images of the disaster do the talking, illustrated with his voice over.
Well said James1070, this was of course back in the day when the BBC reported the news and was respected for it. Now we get “a show”, opinions and certain points of view instead. Not many years later new kid on the block CNN covered the Gulf War (first one) and since then – although the seeds were sown earlier – the beeb has never been the same, striving and thrashing about (and dumbing down) to attract market share, something it DOESN’T have to do due to “the unique funding”.
Well Mr B should clarify his position as it can be construed as =
A= a stupid lazy comment designed to cause maximum offence and give the greenish a new level of attack !
B= a sarcastic play at the BBC and it’s hatred of sceptics and anyone who disagrees with their mind set!
Either way he’s a grow man and should stand by what he said or apologise.
To me, it sounds like he’s being sarcastic. It’s a bit of a shame that some people here think that is his own view; I think it shows how the BBC messes with minds.
“On several occasions certain kids would open my fly and start to stroke me. I reacted differently according to circumstances, but their desire posed a problem for me. I asked them: ‘Why don’t you play together? Why have you chosen me, and not the other kids?’ But if they insisted, I caressed them still.”
That’s Daniel Cohn-Bendit, former commie and now co-president of the Greens in the European Parliament, writing about his time running a kindergarten in the 1970s. While warmists try to smear sceptics by linking them to paedophiles, one of the most influential polticians on their side is the real deal.
“former anarchist” perhaps more accurate than “former communist”
Cohn-Bendit told the journalist, “I admit that what I wrote is unacceptable nowadays”.
No, it’s not your words but your actions which you described that is unacceptable.
No, it’s not your words but your actions which you described that is unacceptable.
Quite so. If he had been a Catholic priest he would have been hounded by the left, and rightly so. Similar deal with Australian artist Donald Friend. Green politician, trendy artist – free pass.
It reminds me of the different attitudes taken against Gary Glitter and Left-Wing, trendy Pete Townshend.
As you said “If he had been a Catholic priest” the Pope would be held responsible. Why can’t the heads of the respective Green Movements be treated the same way as the Pope?
“It reminds me of the different attitudes taken against Gary Glitter and Left-Wing, trendy Pete Townshend.”
It’s a tough choice between this and David Preiser’s post that Ireland had an “alternative plan” to Germany’s “austerity measures”; but congratulations for the stupidest post of the day. Extra kudos for using the word “trendy”.
Have a gold star!
Dez, any chance of an explanation behind your statement? Or is it just a drive-by sneer?
Ireland made massive cuts in public spending. I don’t quite see how you call that an alternative plan to cutting public spending?
As for Garry Glitter vs. Pete Townsend; that’s just stupid
Dez, have to thank you for posting and bringing one back to some points that might have been missed, and especially making them more potent in such a special (‘unique’?) style of hapless attempted distraction and personal abuse.
Fortunately these are seeming to be more and more rare, perhaps due to the paucity of anything that even your woeful abilities to pick upon at any substantive level, or perhaps the time just to climb out of that hole that you are digging.
But by merely highlighting all that the BBC is pumping out that has no excuse, is a true service.
Wrong, Dez. Ireland kept the spending up, despite repeated warnings, until the bitter end, when they had to be bailed out, leaving the place in such a mess that even now banks are still failing. When the problems were pointed out to him last year, the Taoseach instead fiddled while the country burned. Any cutbacks were done too little, too late, and have barely been put into place (not sure if they’ve even started to take effect yet).
Ireland had plenty of time to actually cut back on spending, but went the Brown/Balls/Obamessiah route instead. I only wish I had a recording of Stephanie Flanders’ appearance on the News Channel one day last year when she said that Ireland’s debt rating was only in trouble because people were shining a light on their internal financial problems, and if the media and IMF had kept quite things would have stayed okay, as proof of how utterly biased she is.
I may have missed it , but did Dez or his stablemate, Scottie, have any observations on the Peter Sissons’ view of the BBC ?
One must assume that Dez finds Mr Cohn-Bendit’s actions acceptable.