Clive Myrie talks to Sylvia Emenike

Hugely disappointed…been watching the BBC’s ‘Australia With Simon Reeves’ and it had been something different from the normal offerings we get which follow the usual beaten path showing us all the same old touristy sights and sounds.

Reeves put in some effort and dug up some of the more interesting corners of Australia….but then the BBC flipped the switch and we got a BBC ‘Stepford wife’…obedient and mindless, repeating the BBC mantra, the party line….on the subjects of Race and Climate Change.

The BBC is up to its old tricks of ambushing us with its propaganda inserted into ‘normal’ programming…you wouldn’t mind half as much…but it is pure misinformation, factually wrong and highly misleading,  and rather blatantly and jarringly levered into place to send us a ‘message’.

36 minutes in we came to issues of race…we were told that Australia was now probably less racist than America or Europe….not Japan, or China, or Nigeria or Pakistan or any non ‘white‘ country? No racism in any other country in the world?…just old whitey again….but despite that…’racial tensions still exist’.

Reeves heads off to Cronulla Beach where he joins up with a team of Muslim women who play Australian rules football.

He gushes along the lines of: ‘Look how fantastically willing they are to engage as Australians…to integrate into society.’

He then gets down to business…in 2005 there were riots at the beach between non-Muslims and Muslims….

Reeves doesn’t bother explaining what caused the riots we were just told that they were ‘race riots’ and the impression given was that it was Muslims who were the innocent victims.

His Muslim ‘witness’ said that the consequences of the riots were that they had reinforced the migrant theory that they didn’t belong in Australia and were not really wanted….totally ignoring all those other immigrants happily making a life for themselves in Australia…..around 6.5% of the population (of 23 million) are now Chinese and 6% are of Indian origin…with many more from the rest of Asia, Africa and the Middle East…as well as the UK of course and New Zealand.

Reeves then asked if she got much hassle for being Muslim and wearing a headscarf…she related a story of her being abused for ‘no reason at all’ at a petrol station…..but there was nothing to substantiate that claim at all.

Nor had there been any other voices to talk about ‘race’ in Australia…it was purely from one perspective…that of the Muslims.

What really happened in Cronulla? The truth puts a completely different spin on things….and it’s not hard to find…it’s all in this police report from the New South Wales Police.

The report shows that groups of ‘Middle Eastern’ men were frequently the cause of violent attacks previous to the riot….and there are plenty of other reports of Muslims assaulting and abusing residents of the area over several years…all of which built up a deep seated feeling of antipathy and resentment against them…which eventually spilled over in 2005.

Was the riot just an attack by ‘whites’ upon Muslims? These text messages intercepted by police show that both sides were looking for a fight:

The following are samples of the text messages that were being distributed:

[From the White side]

“Just a reminder that Cronulla’s 1st wog bashing day is still on this Sunday. Chinks bashing day is on the 27^th and the Jews are booked in for early January”

Every fucking aussie. Go to Cronulla Beach Sunday for some Leb and wog bashing Aussie Pride ok”

[From the Muslim side]

“All lebo I wog brothers. Sunday midday. Must be at North Cronulla Park. These skippy aussies want war. Bring ur guns and knives and lets show them how we do it”

“0 fight each Aussie. Yulleh. Lets get hectic and turn gods country into wogs country. Habib will be cookin victory kebabs after. Tell all your cousins”

At the same time intelligence was being received by police from a variety of sources that Caucasian males were planning to converge on Cronulla Beach area on Sunday Ilth December. Also, intelligence was received that Middle Eastern males were going to the same area to engage in a riot.’

From the evidence it looks as if this was a case of Whites ‘defending’ themselves against the racism of ‘Muslims’….rather than the other way round…..at the very least it was both ‘sides’ equally to blame …it certainly wasn’t a one sided racist assault by white Australians on innocent immigrants that Reeves portrays it as.

Reeves rounds it all up with a pious bit of patronising preaching from the BBC multicultural bible:

‘Racism is an issue that Australia must deal with if the communities are going to be a harmonious society that makes the most of Australia’s position the edge of Asia….other people may see them [Muslims] as outsiders but they see themselves as Aussie to the core and my goodness what amazing young women they are!’

He then moves on to climate change and tells us that Australians are some of the most evil people on the planet…they are one of the worst offenders for polluting the atmosphere with CO2. Not China then or India?

Australia produces around 1.4% of the world’s emissions of CO2, China 23.5%, India around 6%, Iran 1.5%. Per capita Australia is worse but not by other measures…by land mass for example…Australia produces only 0.17% per Sq Km, China 2.6% per Sq Km….take your pick how you compare emissions and ‘guilt’.

Reeves tells us that Australia is a heavy user of energy, a massive user of electricity generated mostly by ‘dirty old coal’…he goes on to say they are among the worst emitters of carbon in the world,  that they are among the most polluting people on the planet…charming…especially as he of course flew there, probably with a big BBC crew and is driving around in a large 4×4.

He says it is hard to know what the consequences will be…but will we heed the warnings?…he implies politicians are corrupted by the system…as democracy fails us because they only look to the short term to win votes by appealing to the ‘people’s’ baser instincts…greed and selfishness no doubt.

Reeves tells us we really need to think long term…and that of course entails putting a stop to all that CO2 ‘pollution‘…..Aunty knows best…just shut your eyes and do what you are told.

Funny the BBC’s version of ‘democracy’…it has nothing to do with what the ’people’ want…but what their ‘morally and intellectually superior’ elites, mostly those working in the Media, tell them they must have.

The BBC always sneers at ‘populism’…but isn’t that ‘democracy’?

The New Cultural Forum’s review of the BBC’s coverage of immigration by Edest has been released:

Groupthink: Can we trust the BBC on immigration?

The last post looked at ‘Prosperity Gospel’ and what the BBC thought about its message…..the Guardian reviewed the programme and within that review one astonishing statement stood out a mile and revealed a lot about a certain mindset:

‘The whole of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, can be read as a record of people coming to terms with failure. In part this was done by the invention of a heroic past, in the empire of Solomon’s time, something that may have been one of the truly great mistakes of history.’

Here Wikipedia explains just what the Guardian may be referring to:

‘King Solomon is one of the central Biblical figures in Jewish heritage that have lasting religious, national and political aspects. As the constructor of the First Temple in Jerusalem and last ruler of the united Kingdom of Israel before its division into the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah, Solomon is associated with the peak “golden age” of the independent Kingdom of Israel as well as a source of judicial and religious wisdom.’

So the Guardian suggests ‘Somebody’ invented a ‘heroic past’……‘one of the truly great mistakes of history‘.

Who would that ‘somebody’ be?

The ‘Jews’ of course……the Jews invented their past…invented their existence as a ‘nation’ and invented their right to exist as such a nation.

The Guardian calls that ‘one of the truly great mistakes in history.’

Isn’t that verging on the old excuse for rabid anti-Semitism that the ‘Jews killed Christ’?

The Guardian here is blaming the Jews for much of what is wrong with the world today …..a modern version of course being….sort out Israel and Palestine and peace and harmony will break out all over the world.….Israel is ‘illegitimate’ and the cause of most of the world’s problems.

The Guardian itself admitted that it had allowed anti-Semitism to rear its ugly head within its pages….things don’t seem to have changed.

The BBC once again broadcasts a programme that tears into a Christian Church as Dotun Adebayo presents a programme about the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ Church.

An interesting programme about a Church that I had never heard of and probably one meriting a look at its activities….but as I said…once again the BBC goes for the Christians.

The programme tells us …..

‘The Bible says you cannot serve both God and Mammon but in this programme the BBC explores the rise of a movement within Christianity which turns that piece of scripture on its head…Christianity can make you rich…material wealth is a sign of God’s blessing in the Church that preaches ‘Prosperity Gospel’.

Prosperity Gospel is based upon purity…if you are good and behave as a Christian God will bless you and that blessing will primarily be and fundamentally be economic.

It is a canon within a canon…some parts of scripture are more important than others….and their interpretation of the Bible is based more on the Old Testament than the New with a selective use of scripture that contradicts the overall message of the Gospel.

We are told that Prosperity Gospel began in the Pentecostal Church in 1950’s America before travelling via evangelism and the satellite to Africa and then to Britain via immigration….the migrants being mostly West African who came to Britain looking for a brighter more prosperous future and so are fertile ground for this type of message which for ‘people of faith’ has a unique and powerful appeal promising people what governments don’t dare.

Where there is faith there is hope…but it comes with a price tag.

Dotun says that: ‘I’ve got to be honest, I’m not comfortable with the mantra of Prosperity Gospel…it makes me queasy…maybe it’s the religious fundamentalism of the 7^th Day Adventism of my Nigerian upbringing or the cultural modesty of my English side…I just don’t feel comfortable with the bling and the brashness of Churches which make a virtue of cashing in and a fortune from it too….I want to know why the message connects with so many people.’

A couple of things that are of note…firstly a presenter who is personally uncomfortable with the subject….having said that, by the end of the programme he says he sort of gets it…the appeal of the message…and the justification of it.

Secondly Mark Thompson refused to cover Islam in a similar fashion dby elving into its inner workings, critiquing what the preachers of Islam claim and what the message of the Koran is.

Why did he refuse to do so?

First of all he said that you had to be more wary when covering a subject about which its followers  might object to your portrayal of it:

‘In a wide-ranging interview about faith and broadcasting, Mr Thompson disclosed that producers were faced with the possibilities of “violent threats” instead of normal complaints if they broadcast certain types of satire:

“Without question, ‘I complain in the strongest possible terms’, is different from, ‘I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write’”.

 But he had another reason to be wary of covering certain subjects:

“The idea you might want to … think quite carefully about whether something done ‘in the name of freedom of expression’ might to the Jew, or the Sikh, or the Hindu, or the Muslim, who receives it, feel threatening, isolating and so forth, I think those are meaningful considerations.”

“It’s not as if Islam is spread evenly across the UK population. It’s almost entirely a religion practiced by people who may already feel in other ways isolated, prejudiced against and where they may well regard an attack on their religion, racism by other means….it’s not unreasonable to ask what the consequences of broadcasting something, or writing something will be for a particular individual or for a community, especially communities who may reasonably – I think that’s perhaps an important word to use – reasonably take the thing to be an attack, or to be threatening.”

So Thompson suggests that a minority or ethnic based religion should be given more sensitive treatment that say Christianity.

And yet here we have a programme that takes a highly critical look at a Church which has a congregation that is almost totally West African in origin….in other word an ethnic minority.

Once again it looks as if the rules are changed just because it is a Christian Church.

The BBC were quite happy to characterise Buddhism as a religion of violence…..and here our old ‘new friend’ Jake Wallis Simons tells us on R4 that he left Buddhism because of its violence…..its ‘darker side’….other religions the BBC are more coy about.

This is what the Guardian says about ‘Prosperity Gospel‘:

‘For young, healthy, anxious strivers who need reinforcement in the face of discouragement, the prosperity gospel is a much less harmful way of escaping the world than either drugs or gambling, and will not make them nearly as poor as those do, even if it never makes them rich.

But no matter how I argue that these rites may be largely harmless when practised by consenting adults, I still find them disgusting.’

The Guardian finds the message of this Church ‘disgusting’…they wouldn’t dare say that about other religions.

And nor would the BBC.

Freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom from England…apparently a shortage of all in Bonnie Scotland.

Over 700 years ago…

…tyranny and terror were the tools being used by England to rule Scotland. Occupied and oppressed, the Scottish nation sought a hero to challenge the cruelty of King Edward I.

Someone to take the campaign for freedom into battle, and on to victory.

When the two countries faced each other at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297, Scotland was led to victory by a figure destined to become a national hero – William Wallace.

Today Scotland has Mr Sean Adams……

According to ‘Mr Sean Adams’ of the SNP BBC Scotland has not allowed the Scots the freedom to comment on BBC editor’s blogs….strange you may think considering there is a referendum coming up on Scottish independence…might be nice for the BBC to let people tell the Media  what they think….unfiltered…you might think it would be a useful sounding board for the BBC itself to judge feeling and opinion..

He compares to all the other regions in the UK which do allow comments:

Mr Sean Adams ‏@ASairFecht 23 May Thirteen BBC regions. All have a political editor. All blog. Only region licence fee payers can’t comment? Scotland. Why @BBCScotlandNews

Mr Sean Adams ‏@ASairFecht 23 May Licence fee payers in Wales, NI and all English regions can comment on Political Editor blogs. Only in Scotland do BBC deny us that option.

Mr Sean Adams ‏@ASairFecht 23 May Anyhow, no time to talk about @BBCScotland denying freedom of speech when there’s grass to be cut. #Priorities

In his blog he expands on the point about BBC Scotland:

‘Some, including me, pointed out that – at the very least – BBC licence payers in Scotland were being discriminated against in relation to those in other parts of these islands. In this blog from April 2nd, 2012 I remarked on the anomaly that the BBC Political Editors in Wales, Northern Ireland and all eight English regions allowed the people who pay their wages to comment on their blogs. Only in Scotland was this privilege removed.

In terms of the BBC’s own Charters and operating guidelines the decision was, to say the least, a strange one. Nation may speak to nation but, it appears, a nation may not speak amongst themselves – except in England, Northern Ireland and Wales of course.

At any other period in Scotland’s modern history the decision would have troubled many. In the context of the Independence Referendum, when those of every political persuasion agree that Scotland faces its most important political decision in over 300 years, it was frankly bizarre.

Scots will not be allowed to discuss the issues with other Scots on the national broadcaster’s online platforms. The only information we are to receive on the issues will be the information supplied by Pacific Quay. Which is fine, I suppose, because the BBC is beyond reproach. No-one on the staff has a political bone in their body. At all times, we can be assured, news will be unfiltered, un-nuanced and uncorrupted.

I hope the people of the rest of these islands don’t feel too encumbered by their surfeit of free speech – it’s a heavy responsibility.

Luckily, we in north Britain have BBC Scotland to tell us what to think.’

Another week….sunshine and endless BBC bias to uncover…what more could you want?

…Just heard on radio  young people getting involved in Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ by volunteering…stick in the BBC’s throat?…it was always the ‘Big Joke’.

The BBC, together with the Telegraph entrapped MP Patrick Mercer, and managed to get him to sign up to what he thought was an agreement with some lobbyists…he would get some money for asking some questions for them in Parliament.

A lot of effort obviously went into the scheme and they got the result they wanted….an MP apparently willing to compromise his position for money.

The BBC didn’t seem so keen to investigate Tim Yeo even when Guido had done all the foot work making allegations of a conflict of interest between Yeo’s position as Chair of the Commons Energy and Climate Change Select Committee and his business interests in ‘green’ industry…Guido claiming:

A serious contender for villain of the year has to be Tim Yeo. The conflicted chairman of the Energy and Climate Change select committee has time and time again flown the green flag this year, insisting that it is mere coincidence he makes over £100,000-a-year from his own renewable energy investments. Just because a conflict of interest is declared, it is still a conflict of interest…

Yeo was forced to distance himself from some businesses and to declare the rest.　

But that is a side issue really…one of the biggest conflicts of interest is in fact that of the BBC itself and its coverage, well, promotion, of man made climate change.

The BBC’s coverage and active persuasion has led to enormous changes in the way people see green issues and has helped persuade politicians to adopt a radical green vision for Britain…one that the Sunday Times today (paywalled) says will make Britain’s energy the most expensive in the world….with all that entails…the fuel poverty, deaths from cold weather as people switch off their heating, and the hugely detrimental effect of the massive cost to business and homes.

Ironically perhaps, Tim Yeo is still at the heart of the problems as on Tuesday he will press for even more rigorous pollution reduction targets…ie CO2 reduction…..ensuring it is ‘green’ energy that has to be utilised to meet those targets. 

The BBC knows this…but again makes no comment about his business interests….or indeed of the BBC’s pension interests in green businesses.

The full glorious story of the BBC’s own involvement in ‘secret lobbying’ on behalf of the climate change movement is laid out by James Delingpole in the Telegraph…linking to Bishop Hill and Tony Newbery.

This is Bishop Hill’s submission to the equally compromised BBC Trust review of the BBC’s science coverage carried out by Prof. Steven Jones….a man who is an ardent supporter of the AGW theory and someone who owes his career to the BBC….no conflict of interest there.

This is Delingpole’s article in the Telegraph:

Why the BBC cannot be trusted on ‘Climate Change’: the full story

Thanks to the combined efforts of the great Bishop Hill and the similarly wondrous Tony Newbery at the Harmless Sky blog, we now have the most comprehensive and thoroughly damning account yet of how the BBC became such an important part of a sinister political campaign to promote climate change alarmism. I recommend reading their report in full at either of their sites linked above. But here below are some of the highlights.

It is to Professor Jones (Steve) that Newbery and the Bishop have addressed their submission.

They conclude:

‘It would appear that, through the activities of CMEP [Cambridge Media and Environment Programme – the Harrabin outfit which deserves a blog of its own…] BBC Newsgathering has got very much too close to government, environmental activism, and the climate research community for its reputation for impartiality and accuracy to be preserved with regard to the science of climate change.’

Perhaps it is time someone investigated the BBC’s involvement and conflicts of interest with the green lobby.

Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph takes a look at the figures that the BBC so readily gave so much airtime to from a project called ’Tell Mama’ that suggested we were looking at a ‘“a wave of attacks, harassment, and hate-filled speech against Muslims … an unprecedented number of incidents”, including “a rise in street harassment of Muslims – unprovoked, opportunistic attacks from strangers as Muslims go about their lives”.

‘The media, especially the BBC, have accepted the claims without question. A presenter on Radio 4’s influential Today programme stated that attacks on Muslims were now “on a very serious scale”.

Talk of a “massive anti-Muslim backlash” has become routine.

Yet the unending “cycle of violence” against Muslims, the unprecedented “wave of attacks” against them from strangers in the street, the “underlying Islamophobia in our society” – all turn out to be yet more things we thought we knew about Woolwich that are not really supported by the evidence.’

Gilligan goes onto look at the figures of claimed ‘Islamophobic’ attacks and concludes it is much exaggerated.

But importantly he also concludes that such exaggeration and the Media propaganda that goes with it, telling of tales of ‘waves of attacks’ against Muslims lead to what the BBC like to call the Muslim community’s ‘sense of endemic fear’…leading to alienation and isolation…and the  radicalisation of some.

‘For some quarters of the Islamophobia industry, it has now become Muslims who are the main victims of the Woolwich horror.

But while some innocent Muslims have of course become victims, the main victim was Drummer Lee Rigby. And in overhyping the backlash, some in the Muslim community are playing right into the hands of his killers.’

Is the BBC also playing right into the hands of the killers and Radical Islamists by ‘overhyping the backlash’?

Having Anjem Choudray on immediately after the killing of Lee Rigby can’t have helped, nor having Abu Nusaybah on  to be interviewed and accepting, and broadcasting relentlessly,  his version of events just before he too was arrested on terrorism charges.

And as noted by DB in the comments: 

BBC Europe producer Piers Scholfield (Green Party supporter) would have us believe that the “backlash” against Muslims in the UK is far worse than the week of rioting that occurred in Sweden:

Piers Scholfield ‏@inglesi 25 May  Violence in #Sweden nothing compared to UK – attacks on Muslims soar – http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/25/woolwich-murder-attacks-on-muslims …

Classic right-on spin from a BBC lefty.

A book by Vali Nasr, ‘The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy In Retreat’ has stirred things up in US political circles.

You might have thought this would be right up Mark Mardell’s alley…not fast moving hard news but something that requires a bit of time, insight and analysis to digest and ponder over.

It’s a fascinating and controversial insight into the Obama ‘foreign policy’ by an insider…this is how an opponent of Nasr’s conclusions described the release of the book:

‘Former State Department Advisor Vali Nasr has set Washington abuzz with his gloves-off denunciation of the Obama administration’s conduct of foreign policy, in particular the war in Afghanistan. Rarely does a recently former government official let loose with such an unalloyed vilification of the administration he served — especially when it is still in power.’

Pretty eye catching stuff I’d say…and yet Mardell and the BBC ignored it altogether and the controversy it threw up…..Mardell, as David Preiser on this site has laid out in detail, is pro-Obama and is uncritical of his foreign policy…calling Obama a ‘warrior and a healer’…..Mardell is of the opinion that Obama is not a ditherer as many believe but a patient and wise man.

Vali Nasr disagrees and suggests Obama’s policy is driven more by homeland politics than morality or pragmatism aimed at genuinely sorting out problems overseas:

The Inside Story of How the White House Let Diplomacy Fail in Afghanistan

“My time in the Obama administration turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience.”

Richard Holbrooke sent Vali Nasr a message.

It said, “Are you up, can you talk?” When I called, he told me that Barack Obama had asked him to serve as envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He would work out of the State Department, and he wanted me to join his team. “No one knows this yet. Don’t tell anyone. Well, maybe your wife.” (The Washington Post reported his appointment the next day.)

OBAMA HAS EARNED

plaudits for his foreign-policy performance. On his watch, the United States has wound down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it finally killed Osama bin Laden. In tune with the public mood, he has largely kept America out of costly overseas adventures.

But my time in the Obama administration turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience. The truth is that his administration made it extremely difficult for its own foreign-policy experts to be heard. Both Clinton and Holbrooke, two incredibly dedicated and talented people, had to fight to have their voices count on major foreign-policy initiatives.

Holbrooke knew that Afghanistan was not going to be easy. There were too many players and too many unknowns, and Obama had not given him enough authority (and would give him almost no support) to get the job done. After he took office, the president never met with Holbrooke outside large meetings and never gave him time and heard him out. The president’s White House advisors were dead set against Holbrooke. Some, like Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, were holdovers from George W. Bush’s administration and thought they knew Afghanistan better and did not want to relinquish control to Holbrooke. Others (those closest to the president) wanted to settle scores for Holbrooke’s tenacious campaign support of Clinton (who was herself eyed with suspicion by the Obama insiders); still others begrudged Holbrooke’s storied past and wanted to end his run of success then and there. At times it appeared the White House was more interested in bringing Holbrooke down than getting the policy right.　

The president had a truly disturbing habit of funneling major foreign-policy decisions through a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House advisors whose turf was strictly politics. Their primary concern was how any action in Afghanistan or the Middle East would play on the nightly news, or which talking point it would give the Republicans.

The Obama administration’s reputation for competence on foreign policy has less to do with its accomplishments in Afghanistan or the Middle East than with how U.S. actions in that region have been reshaped to accommodate partisan political concerns.

It was to court public opinion that Obama first embraced the war in Afghanistan. And when public opinion changed, he was quick to declare victory and call the troops back home. His actions from start to finish were guided by politics, and they played well at home. Abroad, however, the stories the United States tells to justify its on-again, off-again approach do not ring true to friend or foe. They know the truth: America is leaving Afghanistan to its own fate. America is leaving even as the demons of regional chaos that first beckoned it there are once again rising to threaten its security.’

This article seems to back up Nasr claiming that Obama shut out the military Joint Chiefs of Staff when making a vital decision:

‘According to a short story from Politico, the Obama administration deliberately kept the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps away from the process that eventually hashed out to the withdrawal strategy.

A number of very smart and influential people have begun to raise questions about the Obama administration’s style, and whether that style is designed to deliberately keep different opinions away from the president’s desk.

The president’s decision to redeploy 34,000 American soldiers from Afghanistan over the coming twelve months seems to follow the path of a White House making a crucially important national security decision without the necessary input from the men who are ultimately responsible for the nation’s military policy—the Joint Chiefs. Why the four most powerful men in the US military bureaucracy were not allowed the opportunity to voice their own opinions about the withdrawal—and why they were not consulted ahead of time once the decision was made—is a mystery that the administration should properly explain.’

I’m not going to argue either way about Obama here but the debate should surely be aired as it is clearly one that is of great interest and possible importance if Obama is shutting out advisors and even his own Chiefs of Staff when making decisions because they might oppose him or offer contrary advice.

Perhaps something that Mardell should have been looking into…rather than doing whatever it is he does…not much recently judging by his Twitter feed….he missed the boat on Benghazi, the tax audit and the phone ‘tapping’ scandals.

These are a couple of articles that should have been on Mardell’s radar and raised a glimmer of interest.