Monthly Archives: February 2011

Democracy the Panacea

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Before the Egyptian uprisings we were told that we in the West must support tyranny to maintain stability. After the uprisings we were told that our newly discovered duty is to oppose tyranny and support democracy.

Our government strove for stability by maintaining a harmonious relationship with “tyrants,” but now they’ve seen that turning a blind eye to tyranny was morally wrong, and universal democracy would be morally right.

Many people suspect that “tyrants” were all that stood between the fragile stability and the dreaded clash of civilisations. However, for the BBC and, it seems, Cameron’s government, democracy is a thing with magical properties. If it comes, lo and behold, it will turn the Islamic street into a secular wonderland.

Meanwhile, (as if we had any choice) we’re plumping for toppling tyrants and keeping our fingers crossed this will bring about liberty, freedom and peace – and abracadabra, turn the Arab World into the West.

No longer must we turn a blind eye to tyranny. Now our blind eyes are turned to the baying mobs chanting “Death to Jews” in Tunis, the stars of David scrawled on Mubarak posters, and the sinister signs of religious bigotry rather than secular liberalism that are emerging from the angry rioting crowd. The BBC’s eyes are the blindest of all.

Many people, apart from the BBC, think this is quite important. Should ‘free and fair’ elections materialise, and the Arab World democratically elect their governments of choice, and hey presto, should their choices involve the Muslim Brotherhood and its ilk, the glorious revolution will, with our blessing, have brought back tyranny. Plus an inharmonious relationship with the West, and lashings (excuse the pun) of extra insecurity and instability thrown in for good measure.

A reader has sent me this:

“There has been so much misinformation circulated that the Egyptians have not used their demonstrations to attack Israel.

The massive crowd (possibly over a million) is first incited by Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi who as part of his victory speech (following the resignation of Mubarak) calls upon the crowd to pray for the conquest of the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. The crowd goes wild. Al-Qaradhawi is the “moderate” muslim leader that condoned suicide bombing of Israeli civilians and advocated the murder of homosexuals. He is now banned from entering the UK after his last visit as a guest of the then mayor of London Ken Livingstone.

Shortly afterwards, the crowd erupts into chanting in unison “To Jerusalem we go, for us to be Martyrs”

So it may be true that the Egyptians were more interested in overthrowing their despotic leader than a Palestinian state, but don’t be misled into thinking that they are likely to set up a wonderfully democratic country with good relations with Israel anytime soon. How could they, if all they’ve been used to receiving on their TV sets for the past 3 decades are programmes inciting the hatred and murder of Jews.”

Our government and our BBC will say, ‘that is how democracy works,’ so like it or lump it.’ Our foreign policy would have to be slightly adjusted, our appeasement of Islam ramped up, and William Hague could stop defending Israel’s right to exist, a stance that looks more faltering and unconvincing each time he declares it.

If they believe that a settlement freeze will hasten the peace process, they must have little or no idea at all what the conflict is about, probably through misleading journalism courtesy of the BBC.

Logic says that anyone who accepts that the Palestinian Authority’s demand for a settlement freeze is a valid prerequisite for ‘coming back to the table’, should equally wonder what’s to stop Israel feeling that Arab recognition of Israel and renunciation of violence is a jolly valid prerequisite for the resumption of negotiations too?

How can anyone expect Israel to come to a peace agreement with neighbours who insist loud and clear that they will never renounce violence and will never ever recognise Israel’s right to exist?

Yet because of heavily slanted reporting, which ignores previously negotiated and agreed territorial apportionment in order to portray all settlement construction as defiant, and a mere land-grab, Israel is not only unjustly given the role of intransigent, swaggering obstacle to peace, it is expected to make concession after concession whilst its enemy sits back and waits for more Hamas-like Islamist-style democracies to load the dice more and more heavily against it.

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The Other

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Several other bloggers are alarmed at the recent tidal wave of films and documentaries we’re being bombarded with, which subtly or overtly misrepresent Israel. Many have been brought to us by the BBC, but the most seductively beguiling of them all is on Channel Four. On last night’s Newsnight, in a wider discussion on the role of the media, I heard Mark Thompson say that BBC is obliged to “confront people with the other.”

In the light of that, I feel justified in explaining why I find The Promise so disturbing, and why I feel that under the principle of confronting people with “the other”, it’s high time the BBC made and aired a programme that shows Israel in a truer, fairer light.

After Louis Theroux, Michael Morpurgo, and some upcoming radio plays which have clear anti Israel agendas, I suspect that as far as Israel is concerned, the BBC may not even be aware that there is an “other”.
A state of emergency should be declared.

Peter Kosminsky has spent several years, some say eight, some ten, devising and incubating this drama. He uses his considerable cinematographic skills to produce a slick advertising-savvy film with an agenda that subliminally and openly reconfirms what many think they already know about the Israel Palestine conflict. Namely: ‘Rich European Jews are transplanted into Muslim Lands by the British in a blundering attempt to atone for the holocaust, with the unintended consequence of penalising the innocent indigenous Arab population.’

The filmmaker has so far used two cheap tricks to mimic balance. One. Gratuitously and voyeuristically-inserted ‘real’ footage of emaciated concentration camp corpses. Two. A cafe suicide bombing in which two of the characters we’re following are injured. These two devices represent Israel’s case for the defence, while everything else represents the case for the prosecution.

Rich, heartless Jews versus poor, noble Palestinians; the giant key symbolising the right of return; left wing, European-born Israelis; checkpoints, the wall, stolen land, brutal Israeli soldiers, heroic, wronged Palestinian schoolgirls, Jewish terroism, stony-faced settlers.

Peter Kosminsky has even turned reality completely on its head! The stone-throwing children were not Palestinian, but Israeli! The Israeli hostess calls Palestinians ‘animals’ when Kosminsky really ought to have known that it’s Jews that are the desendants of pigs and apes. Ruthless Zionists tarred and feathered the female spy as a bluff to make our hero trust her. And though terrorism is the current method of resistance of the Muslims, it was brought to you first by Jews; and guess who were ‘put into prison camps’ by the Jews.

All this, and still one episode to go. But these things have all been done before, though perhaps less slickly and perhaps less seductively.

The website indicates that Kosminsky hopes to introduce a wider audience to the Palestinian cause. They are to learn the “truth” Kosminsly-style, through drama.
Comments, tweets, and even a liveblog, which Kosminsky himself has graced with his interactive presence, are all provided on the website. The gullible media addicts have tweeted and texted their appreciation in droves. They were captivated, amazed, thrilled, and ever so grateful that the hitherto mystifying Israel / Palestine conflict has been set out in technicolour for easypeasy digestion, painlessly and enchantingly.
What is alarming is that this advertising propaganda masquerades as enlightenment.
Kosminsky, far from trying to warn people that his partisan film isn’t a substitute for a fully comprehensive education, graciously accepts the plaudits. Lindsey (No I am not an anti-Semite) Hilsum provides a handy Potted Political History. Comments pointing to the omissions and obfuscations therein are dismissed by a Channel Four spokesman – because Lindsey Hilsum is an expert, so there.
I know it’s not part of my remit to comment on Channel Four business, so, if only because of the BBC’s obligation to confront people with “the other”, I rest my case.

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Congressman Allen West (D-FL) Speaks Truth To Islamic Power. Any Thoughts, BBC?

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Republican Congressman for Florida, Col. Allen West vs. the Executive Director of the Center for American Islamic Relations (CAIR). No prizes for guessing who comes out on top. Unless, that is, you work for or defend the BBC, in which case this video clip will make your head explode.

The only time the BBC actually mentioned Col. West before was right before the elections last November, where Kevin Connolly (he who insulted hundreds of thousands of people on air and online with a sexual innuendo) briefly discussed one of West’s campaign ads, in which Candidate West tries to discourage voters from choosing his opponent by tying him to the President (not counting the separate page where they posted the ad with a short blurb). He barely got a mention for his victory on election night, as if he didn’t exist and wasn’t a huge smack in the face of the BBC’s lie about how racism is a main factor in the Tea Party movement.

Connolly was unable to process the information even then, and made the following very revealing statement:

It is a common enough practice in tight races where the presence of a political big-shot can tip the balance.

What makes the ad unusual is that it is paid for by a Republican candidate, Allen West and he is gambling that Mr Obama’s intervention in the race will be a plus for him and a negative for his Democratic rival, Ron Klein.

It’s unusual for a Republican to do this? Um, yeah, NO. This is Beeboid Connolly simply unable to grasp the concept of a black man not slavishly (oops!) siding with another black man in politics. Of course, the BBC generally supports and understands people voting along racial lines: when it’s non-whites doing it. So it’s only natural that Connolly would be confused by this black man opposing a black President. Connolly is so out of touch that he also said this:

The biggest single factor contributing to those declining ratings is the economy. There is an iron rule in American politics that when unemployment is high, as it is here in Florida, the presidents gets a pummelling.

But there is more to it than that. Somehow the two signature achievements of Obama’s first two years in the White House are being made to feel like electoral liabilities.

Somehow the “two signature achievements” are made to feel like liabilities? As if those “achievements” aren’t connected to the crap economy in any way? His bias prevented him from grasping two simple concepts. Thankfully, the BBC has since transferred him out of the US.

In any event, don’t hold your breath waiting for the BBC to report this, or anything positive about Congressman West at all. They sure as hell don’t want you to know about this. In fact, this is a discussion forbidden on BBC airwaves by anyone.

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BBC "THWARTED IMMIGRATION DISCUSSION"

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The Daily Mail today notes that more than 3m legal immigrants were allowed into the UK under new Labour, with the total swelled by a further 1m illegals. This, it observes, has been the biggest invasion for a thousand years, even though their election manifesto in 1997 vowed to control our borders. (Presumably it means proportionately the largest, because the population of the UK was only around 3m in total 1,000 years ago) Sir Andrew Green, the persistent, well-researched and erudite head of Migration Watch UK, says that a major factor in allowing the influx was the attitude of the BBC. He writes:

Another major factor was the attitude of the BBC and, in particular, its devotion to multiculturalism. For years it avoided discussing immigration if it possibly could.

Although in the autumn of 2005 official statistics for the previous year showed an increase of 50 per cent in net immigration, there was no mention of this on the BBC.

Its own report into impartiality, published in June 2007, concluded that its coverage of immigration amounted to bias by omission.

Last December the corporation’s director-general admitted: ‘There are some areas, immigration, business and Europe, where the BBC has historically been rather weak and rather nervous about letting that entire debate happen.’ Indeed so.

The overall effect was to deter any serious discussion of immigration and to give plenty of space to the Left to accuse anyone who raised the subject of being a covert racist. On this matter the BBC failed to meet its own standards of objectivity.

Back in 2003/4, I did research into the BBC’s coverage of immigration, and it was blatantly clear that all those who opposed Labour’s policy were ignored, the only people interviewed about the topic were fervent multi-culturalists, and people like Sir Andrew Green were cast as bigoted xenophobes. As usual, what I submitted was ridiculed. Not much has changed, even though Mark Thompson has now admitted that there was a problem. The real issue is that no matter what it says, the corporation’s desire for what it sees as multi-culturalism is an integral part of its credo. I can hear their purring agreement with Labour’s verdict on the figures:

This is an unbalanced, misleading and highly political report. Migration levels increased initially because of the strength of the British economy over many years.

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CARRY ON REPORTING

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The UN wants to rob £800bn every year from the global economy to tip down the chute of eco-worship and send us back to the stone age. The BBC faithfully reports this mania , without a word of dissent or common-sense. In the BBC’s green-creed book, it must be worth reporting because 100 ministers (no less!)along with a clutch of “experts” say so. And in the world of eco-fascism, what ministers and experts say must be obeyed. Actually, I agree with some of what these UN nutters are advocating. For starters, let’s scrap the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy, and with them, the whole shooting match of corruption in Brussels. The reality is that none of that will go, all that will happen is more bloated, corrupt globocrats will harry and scour the world finding fantastical ways of frittering our cash. And the BBC will carry on reporting.

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Party Political Broadcast…

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…on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood.
A major party political broadcast on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood has appeared on the BBC website.
The BBC are committed followers of the Brotherhood, but any indecisives reading this effusive promo should have their lingering doubts swept clean away.

“Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood promotes moderate path.” says the BBC, so it must be so.
“The Muslim Brotherhood runs hospitals, schools, banks, community centres, and facilities for the disabled in cities and towns all over the country.” the BBC’s Tarik Kafala gushes. There follows a lengthy endorsement that no hard-hearted cynic could fail to fall for, except those of us who fail to fall for it.

“The Farouk Hospital is clean and it works, its corridors bustling with poor and middle class Egyptians.
It is a noticeably Islamic institution; framed Koranic verses hang on the walls; the many women there, patients and employees, wear colourful headscarves and conservative clothes.”

Wow. Spread the good news!
Funny how some political outfits can’t shake off their antisemitic histories, but with one fell swoop the Brotherhood can reinvent itself as benevolent, organised and good natured.

“With its conservative Islamist agenda and its historical links to radical and sometimes violent groups, it is feared and mistrusted in the West and to some extent in Egypt.”

But please don’t let that put you off.

“The worry about us in the West is the result of bias and double standards,” Dr Arian says.”
“the hospital is “non-political and non-profit making, and we offer our medical services without consideration to gender, race or religion”.
Such hospitals are the cutting edge of the Muslim Brotherhood’s much-vaunted social services.”

As well as being misunderstood, the poor Brotherhood is also hard done by.

“The Brotherhood, still banned in Egypt, is beginning its campaign to be recognised as a formal political party. It is assumed to be Egypt’s best organised and most popular opposition movement.”

They said all that about Hamas before they murdered most of the opposition. But they were democratically elected, which is just what we in the West are keen to encourage.
The Christians were a bit worried, says the article, near the end, but they’re hoping for the best.
So, VOTE VOTE VOTE Muslim Brotherhood.

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Impeccable Sources

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Lefty blogger (and New Zealander) Kate Belgrave :

At the start of last week, I was surprised by what I felt was a relatively quiet national political and press response to the battles that were raging at council meetings as people protested about council cuts.

The BBC spoke to me about using some of my stuff for segments on cuts last week, and there have been stories here and there on protests.

Any right-ish bloggers, even English ones, getting calls from the BBC ? Do let us know …

* tumbleweed blows across road *

* You wait. Time passes. Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold *

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More BBC Dishonesty About Wisconsin

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I’m sorry to keep making posts about this, but this time the BBC has really gone too far in their deceitfulness.

Wisconsin budget cuts: Madison rally attracts thousands

On the fifth day of such protests, opponents of the Republican state Governor, Scott Walker, outnumbered supporters of the bill.

The bill introduced in the Wisconsin congress would cut sharply the wages and benefits of public sector workers, and curtail collective bargaining.

Saturday’s rallies were peaceful despite angry chants on both sides.

“Sharply cut the wages and benefits” is union talking points. Same use of emotional, partisan language, just different choice of words than last time. But that’s not the worst part. Notice the “angry chants” were “on both sides”.

This is where the BBC disgusts me. Their Narrative about the Tea Party movement, as I’ve been reminding everyone for the last few days focused on the “anger”. There was never a raised Beeboid eyebrow at the anger of anti-Bush protests, and until now there hasn’t been a single mention about the anger of these union supporters. Until now, since they can pin blame equally on either side, thus mitigating any damage done to the Left.

But that’s still not even the worst part. This is:

Anti-Walker protester Jim Schneider, 69, waved a sign with “Hosni Mubarak?” written next to a picture of the governor, who has refused to negotiate with the unions.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “Hey, Dave, this is actually progress. The BBC is finally reporting on this kind of stuff when the Left does it. Not sure I agree with you here.” But then you’ll read this:

“The Egyptians have been a great example to us,” the retired teacher said. “What happens here is going to be very important to what happens in a lot of other states, just like the thing that happened in Egypt had an effect on a lot of other countries in the Middle East.”

The BBC even provides space to support this kind of behavior. They agree with the sentiment, of course. I’d like to point out, however, that for some reason the BBC decided to censor the image of the actual poster. I don’t know if it’s either of these two (Craig posted the one on the right in a comment to my last Wisconsin post), but I suspect it’s the one on the left:


In which case the BBC forgot to tell you that this guy is calling Walker a dictator. I’m sure that doesn’t help the Narrative that these area all good people, “workers”, salt of the earth, on the side of the angels. And if you missed which side you’re supposed to support, they make sure to mention that the governor “has refused to negotiate with the unions”.

And that’s it. Nothing else from the BBC about any signage or angry rhetoric. No mention of Hitler signs or union supporters comparing Governor Walker with Nazis. Instead, the BBC tries to play it as the anger being equal from both sides.

Not only that, but notice also how the only speaker for the Tea Party group was “Joe the Plumber” (for whom the BBC made sure to spell out his real name, a reminder of the moment when the BBC and Leftoid media tried to smear him as being a fake), but no mention at all of Herman Cain. Cain is an actual pundit and has a very large following. His name is even tossed around in discussions of 2012.

Why censor the news about Mr. Cain, BBC? Is it ’cause he is black?

There’s one more bit of information about these protests that’s been censored by the BBC: apparently a few alleged physicians (some actually med students) are handing out fake sick notes so the protesters can get off work. One of them even gave a sick note to Andrew Breitbart. Needless to say, this is a violation of federal law. But the BBC will keep quiet. Just like they’re keeping shtum about the fact that their beloved Obamessiah has sent His minions (Organizing for America) to help rouse the rabbles.

Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

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UNIVERSAL ED

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Is it just me or has the BBC been going out of it’s way to ensure that Red Ed Miliband gets a rebuttal in every time the Coalition so much as opens its mouth? I was looking at this page concerning the Red One’s appearance at the Welsh Labour Party Conference today, note how they actually top and tail the item with videos of Miliband waffling in that ever so earnest but yet slightly scary wide eyed way. I don’t recall the Conservatives being granted the same frequency of coverage and rebuttal when Blair and Brown held court. Then again, if Cameron really is supporting Chris Patten as the next Chairman of the BBC, he deserves ALL he gets.

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