Author Archives: Alan

‘It’s surely not just me who, reading this, thinks of the BBC telling us, in the brazen untruth akin to O’Brien convincing Winston Smith that two plus two equals five, that we’re all going to fry and then drown. Perhaps 2013 isn’t so different from Nineteen Eighty-Four.’ 

Apologies to Stuart Jeffries of the Guardian….the irony of that.

Just as famous film stars such as John Wayne, Noel Coward and James Stewart were recruited by government during WWII to ‘The Cause’ and used in propaganda films, sometimes whilst serving in the military,  the BBC has mobilised its stars in the war against climate change ‘deniers’.

David Adam from the Guardian reveals the thinking that lies behind such decisions:….‘A short-term disaster is needed to guarantee coverage as people aren’t good at processing information about there being no ice at the poles in 30 years. Or get David Attenborough as the front man because everyone trusts him.’

In other words get a familiar, almost father-like figure, who is liked and trusted by the Public to ‘sell’ the idea of man made global warming….never mind the science…..use David Attenborough’s long established credibility, as a TV wildlife presenter, to beguile people into accepting this theory as fact.

The latest ‘honest, homely face’ to be mobilised by the BBC for the ‘frontline’ is Kate Humble, the bubbly, attractive and well liked presenter, probably best known for ‘Spring Watch’.

She is on our screens presenting ‘Orbit: Earth’s Extraordinary Journey’ along with the equally telegenic (No doubt a good reason for the BBC choosing a good looking scientist) Dr Helen Czerski as they ‘follow the Earth’s voyage around the sun for one complete orbit, to witness the astonishing consequences this journey has for us all. ‘

I haven’t seen the first episode, only catching this latest one, episode 2.  It’s an hour long and you can watch for a long time unaware of any agenda…..they relate the way in which the Sun influences the planet’s weather.

You could be easily fooled into thinking…what?  The BBC, so keen on man made global warming, is telling us how powerful the effect of the Sun is on the planet…..you can wait and wait and wait…and all you get is facts about the Earth’s orbit, the tilt of the Earth and the distance from the Sun of the Earth at different times of the year.

Forty minutes in and nothing on the radar really…but then you start to notice the trigger words and phrases slowly being slipped into the script….not a hint of ‘climate change’ though.

The scene is being set, the trap laid.

We get mentions of ice ages, tipping points and delicate balances as well as lags in warming and minute changes having devastating effects…not to mention sea levels rising….still no ‘climate change’.

Watch it and you will realise it has been carefully choreographed to bring you almost unawares to a certain point of credulity….it has primed you to be ready to accept their propaganda….you have been ‘groomed’ if you like….there should be a law against it….oh, there is…it demands the BBC be ‘impartial’. Never mind.

Part of the reason for this attention to the effect of the sun is paradoxically to persuade you that the sun has in fact no influence on global warming…or at least it has not been the main factor behind the recent rise in temperature over the last half century or so.

Climate change sceptics have long argued that the effect of the Sun is disregarded by the AGW advocates and that it plays a far larger part in global warming than is accepted by the ‘consensus’.  The BBC here is slyly attempting to discount that effect whilst acknowledging that the Sun is a powerful force that, although effecting  climate, its effects are now overwhelmed by man made causes.

So the mood music plays on and the programme rumbles on with Humble giving her bubbly best.

Finally the BBC makes its move and plonks Humble down in the Arctic.  You know what is coming but she keeps you waiting, even saying the sea ice is growing just to tease the Sceptics some more…..then she strikes.

She informs us that the existence of sea ice is a testament to the complex responses of the planet to the Sun…..BUT…it is a delicate balance…..and no one is more aware of that than the people who live there.

This year, she tells us, has seen less sea ice than previous years….part of a trend over the whole of the Arctic, the area covered by sea ice shrinking signifcantly over the last twenty years.

Warmer winters mean the sea does not cool as normal…

…And, there is little doubt that the cause of the warmer winters is US.

Finally she got there…but she’s not finished yet….

You may think, she tells us, that global warming feels like a myth in Britain where we have had a string of cold winters but  here on the frontline, in the Arctic,  it’s a reality.

The Arctic will continue to warm over the next century and we will generate the kind of climate change created in the past by changes in the Earth’s orbit.

Brilliant…she ties it all together…all that innocuous science about the Earth’s orbit and the powerful effects of the sun on climate suddenly coalesce into an attack on the sceptical, almost using it as a blunt instrument to bludgeon them into acceptance of the alarmist’s scare mongering….not only that but she discounts the cold winters here…they don’t matter at all.

However, all that subtle build up was wasted really, certainly on me, the supposed rapier denouement being too blunt, too obvious in the end but no doubt a clever ploy, however let down by a clumsy finish, that may have frightened a few people to sign up to  ‘The Cause’.

Fantastic that the BBC has such creative talent at its disposal who can sit down and actually craft a programme that is designed, not to inform and educate, but to persuade,  gull or sucker,  the viewer into believing a desired viewpoint.

The aim of the programme was not to give you information that could enable you to decide for yourself…it was solely a cynical exercise in manipulation, ‘manufacturing consensus’ if you like….telling you what to think not respecting your own views at all.

The BBC…producing propaganda worthy of any Stalinist regime.

Ironic really in a week when Orwell is the man of the hour so to speak.

Margaret Atwood  in her herogram to Orwell in the Guardian earlier this month: “People who run counter to the current popular wisdom, who point out the uncomfortably obvious, are likely to be strenuously baa-ed at by herds of angry sheep.”

The BBC fought a long war against the Iraq war and the ‘war on terror’, their fight began in fact by campaigning against the start of the Afghan war in 2001.

The fight continues.  Having taken a drubbing from Hutton the BBC never misses a chance to ‘correct’ history and to change your perceptions and views  of the various wars.

The latest piece of re-education is from ‘Book of The Week’, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan  in which, as mentioned before, one of the BBC’s favourite ‘whites gone native’ and Islamist supporter, William Dalrymple, gets his book about the First Afghan War read out and used, as he intended, as a warning from history…the real target of course being the present ‘war on terror’….opposed as he is to it…or rather the Western self defensive actions.  He is happy to justify Jihadist violence of course….

‘As long as the west interferes in the Muslim world, bombs will go off; and as long as Britain lines up behind George Bush’s illegal wars, British innocents will die in jihadi atrocities. But that does not mean we are about to be invaded, nor is Europe about to be demographically swamped, as North American commentators such as Mark Steyn claim: Muslims will make up no more than 10% of the European population by 2020.’

These are the opening words of the first episode which give the full flavour of what to expect and the real motivations behind the book….

‘Rawlinson’s chance sighting of a large party of Russian Cossacks was to the First Afghan War what the weapon’s of mass destruction were to the invasion of Iraq….a single piece of ambiguous intelligence was manipulated by a group of ideologically driven hawks into a reason to invade an independent country.’

Needless to say that paragraph is more indicative of Dalrymple’s own ideology and manipulation of facts than anything else….and of course speaks loudly of the BBC’s readiness to give massive publicity to this book and its poisonous narrative which correlates so closely with its own…or as it says in its own words:

‘The First Anglo-Afghan War ended in Britain’s greatest military humiliation of the nineteenth century: an entire army of the then most powerful nation in the world ambushed in retreat and utterly routed by poorly equipped tribesmen.

Prize-winning and bestselling historian William Dalrymple’s retelling of Britain’s greatest imperial disaster is a powerful and important parable of colonial ambition and cultural collision, folly and hubris, for our times.’

The so called ‘army’ consisted mostly of a mere 4000 or so troops, the majority of which were less well trained Indian units and which was withdrawing for weeks in the midst of winter through deep snow in mountainous terrain with hardly any food…..hardly a prospect any army would relish.  It is of course not good to ‘lose’ 4000 or so troops but the BBC seem to conveniently forget that British troops then swept back through Afghanistan capturing the Afghan rebel leader, crushing all resistance and taking control…before leaving.

The British were keen to have a stable and reliable ally on its frontier…

“To justify his plan, Lord Auckland issued the Simla Manifesto in October 1838, setting forth the necessary reasons for British intervention in Afghanistan. The manifesto stated that in order to ensure the welfare of India, the British must have a trustworthy ally on India’s western frontier.’.

Dalrymple compares nineteenth century British actions  with the present war in Afghanistan  but doesn’t make a similar comparison with the Taliban…which is a Pakistani proxy army sent into Afghanistan and designed to ensure Pakistan and not India controls or influences Afghanistan and its politics….and thereby doesn’t threaten Pakistan.

Dalrymple only sees what he wants to see…and the BBC only let’s us see what it wants us to see….happily that coinicides with what Dalrymple sees.

Whilst the BBC wouldn’t suppress ‘Jerry Springer’ after tens of thousands of complaints it does censor, off its own back, a play on the grounds that it might suggest that the beliefs and values of the Muslim Community are offensive…to the Muslim Comunity.

George R in the comments highlights this from the Independent:

‘A leading playwright has accused the BBC of an “extraordinary” act of censorship after the corporation told her to cut key lines from a drama about “honour killings” which will be broadcast by Radio 4 this week.

Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti wrote an episode for Radio 4’s DCI Stone series, which will be broadcast in the Afternoon Drama slot.

Bhatti’s episode, called Heart Of Darkness, tells the story of an investigation into the killing of a 16 year-old Asian girl, whose dumped body is found after being stabbed to death.

When it emerges that the girl was a victim of an “honour killing”, DCI Stone is told by his bosses is to treat the case “sensitively” because of her Muslim heritage.

“A week before recording I got an email from the producer saying the BBC compliance department had asked them to take lines out.

Then another line is cut:

“At the end, a character says: ‘There is so much pressure in our community, to look right and to behave right.’

The compliance department came back and said ‘we don’t want to suggest the entire Muslim community condones honour killings.’

“It’s an extraordinary and awful situation. They said the lines were offensive but they absolutely were not. We live in a fear-ridden culture.

“Unbelievably, what the compliance department said was if you can find a factual example of community pressure leading to an honour killing, you can have the line. But it’s a drama, a story.

“It’s a crucial part of that story.”

A Radio 4 spokesman said: “This is a hard-hitting drama about the realities of honour killing in Britain. A single line in the script could be taken to infer that the pressure and motivation to commit such a crime in a family comes from the wider Muslim community, potentially misrepresenting majority British Muslim attitudes to honour killing.”

‘…pressure and motivation to commit such a crime in a family comes from the wider Muslim community, potentially misrepresenting majority British Muslim attitudes…’

Is that not the whole concept behind ‘Honour killings’?  That they are committed because the family believes that in the eyes of the ‘community’ a family member has acted dishonourably and brought shame on the family…and the community.

They arise from not just Arab and Muslim traditions and beliefs but in this case this is a play supposedly based on real speech patterns about a Muslim girl….no one would say ‘So much pressure on our community…oh, and the Sikhs, Hindus, and a few fanatical Christians, possibly the odd atheist community as well, to look and behave right’.

A white girl was recently beaten up by her family for going out with a black man….’A couple were jailed yesterday for a brutal attack on the daughter they felt had shamed them by dating a black man‘…..the BBC would have no trouble at all in a play that suggested that the family attacked her because they believed that the rest of the ‘white community’ would think this was a ‘disgrace’ to the White Race.  The BBC are more than happy to use language that equates being white with being racist….remember their reaction to Jade Goody in ‘Big Brother’….BBC presenter after BBC presenter told us that she showed the ‘real truth’ about White British attitude to black or brown skinned people…..the unthinking and ignorant BBC finger pointers not even realising Goody’s father was ‘black’.

The BBC spent a week pouring over this insignificant spat of ill- temper whilst it ignored the other C4 programme on that same week that revealed genuine racism and violent intentions of some Muslims in Dispatche’s ‘Undercover Mosque’…..‘an ideology of bigotry and intolerance’.…a message being spread throughout Britain by British Mosques.

Honour killings are a reaction often to behaviour that is seen to go against that of the Community…dressing or ‘behaving’ too Western for example.  Not behaving ‘Muslim’ in other words.

It maybe that not everyone in that community agrees with the concept, maybe not the majority…but there can be no doubt it stems from the cultural attitudes within that community, often predicated upon the ‘value’ placed on women by that culture….In the case of Muslim communities a value prescribed by the Koran which places women at a lower level of society and worth than men, which has consequences.

‘The lawyer and human rights activist Hina Jilani says, “The right to life of women in Pakistan is conditional on their obeying social norms and traditions.”

Tahira Shaid Khan, a professor of women’s issues at Aga Khan University blames it on attitudes (across different classes, ethnic and religious groups) that view women as property with no rights of their own as the motivation for honor killings.  Khan also argues that this view results in violence against women and their being turned “into a commodity which can be exchanged, bought and sold.”

The 2009 European Parliamentary Assembly noted in their Resolution 1681 the dire need to address honor crimes. The resolution stated that: “On so-called ‘honor crimes,’ the Parliamentary Assembly notes that the problem, far from diminishing, has worsened, including in Europe. It mainly affects women, who are its most frequent victims, both in Europe and the rest of the world, especially in patriarchal and fundamentalist communities and societies. For this reason, it asked the Council of Europe member states to ‘draw up and put into effect national action plans to combat violence against women, including violence committed in the name of so-called ‘honor,’ if they have not already done so.” ‘

The BBC by hiding the issue, the source of the problem, turns what is a ‘protest’ play that highlights the social and cultural pressures that drive honour killings into mere entertainment, voyeurism…with no genuine take on why these killings happen.

The BBC brushes deaths, the causes of those deaths, under the carpet….but is happy to use them for the viewing Public’s edification and pleasurable enjoyment anyway.

The Labour Leader’s ex-Moll Flanders makes a desperate attempt to make a case against Tory George Osborne……she asks him three questions and claims he would only answer one…shock horror…politician evades answering questions!….except, if she read her own piece, she would see that he did answer all three questions….just not giving the answer that Flander’s obviously wants.

Question 1:

I asked George Osborne three questions this morning, minutes after the latest GDP figures came out. He only answered one of them.

He made clear that there would be no change to the government’s strategy in response to this news. Quite the opposite.

“We can run away from our problems or we can confront them – and we’re going to confront them.”

That was the question he answered.

One answered.

Question 2:

In response to my second question, he did not take the opportunity to agree with Nick Clegg’s recent suggestion that the coalition (and Labour) had cut capital spending too fast in the early part of the austerity programme.

Mr Osborne did agree that capital investment was important, noting the extra capital spending that had been put back into the budget since 2011. But, he said, restoring confidence in 2010 was important too. In other words, he deflected the question.

Deflected the question?  No…he answered it…he told you that they cut capital spending at the given rate in order to restore confidence in the economy.

Two answered.

Question 3:

But his failure to answer my last question did surprise me.

I asked him whether he was going to follow the advice that the IMF’s chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, had given, in a BBC interview with Simon Jack – to use the Budget to rethink at least some of the austerity planned for this year.

Privately, Mr Osborne’s advisors insist that “the IMF’s advice for the UK has not changed”. That’s true. The Fund says that too. Their broad support for the government’s approach still stands.

Well, she answers her own question there….but Osborne had already made it plain in his earlier answer….his policy would remain unchanged.

Three answered.

There are quite a few questions Flanders needs to answer herself.

Mark Easton adds to his file of opinionated pieces with this ‘report’ claiming that removing the DNA of people not convicted of any crime from the police database will result in more rapes, murders and serious crimes….oh those nasty Tories!

‘Will the government’s Protection of Freedoms Act lead to an increase in murders, rapes and other serious crimes? New research from the United States suggests it might.’

No equivocation there then.

‘The legislation, which became law last May, is resulting in many thousands of DNA profiles being removed from the UK’s giant DNA database

In a Commons debate in October 2011, Home Office Minister James Brokenshire challenged the suggestion “that the more people’s DNA is on the database, the more effective it is”.

However, it’s also true that in 2008/9 there were 79 murder, manslaughter or rape cases in which DNA was matched to individuals who had been arrested but not convicted.’

Easton is arguing against himself there……if the police had the DNA why weren’t the individuals convicted?

He continues….’With the murder rate in England and Wales now at its lowest level since Jim Callaghan was prime minister, there are many theories as to why violent crime has seen such a significant fall in recent years. One answer is the DNA database.’

‘One answer‘…that’s a very slippery rhetorical device…..becuse it’s not ‘one answer‘…it’s only ‘one theory’ amongst many….the many that aren’t listed here by Easton.

‘It is broadly accepted that there is a balance to be struck between crime prevention and individual freedom. This new research adds a little more evidence to help decide where the balance should lie.’

Guess we now know where Easton thinks that balance should be.

Always grateful for his personal opinion funded by the license fee.

The BBC were trailing this programme last week, ‘In Search of The British Dream’ (Tonight (28th) at 20:00 hr)…it is of course about immigration.

Yes, really, the BBC investigating immigration and its effects on British culture, society and infrastructure such as housing, the NHS and schools.

If that’s what you thought, you’d have been far from the truth.  Needless to say.

What we actually get is a pro-immigration piece of propaganda…the sole purpose to persuade you that immigrants are not a drain on any of the social services and that they have no intention of coming here just for the easy life provided courtesy of British tax payers.

‘Foreigners are settling in the UK in record numbers. Mukul Devichand seeks to see the country through the eyes of those who have recently arrived.’

The BBC man, Mukul Devichand, who fronts the piece is one of the BBC’s ‘go to’ people when it comes to ethnic storylines.

He has been set on the trail of Nick Griffin and has produced a programme presented by that other BBC stalwart of the left, Michael Sandel…again on immigration….all about those ‘undocumented’ immigrants to America.

Devichand has been allowed to pre-air his propaganda in the Guardian, the BBC’s outhouse, as opposed to inhouse, journal.

Remarkable that there is such a close working relationship between those two media organisations.

Any chance that they are working in concert to promote a certain view point?……It has to be said that Devichand’s piece has got widespread attention already on the ‘net’…which is undoubtedly why it was allowed to go into print.

Here is some of what he tries to pass off as  impartial journalism:

‘What if we were told that thousands of people from Africa we’ve seen arriving here are not, in fact, fleeing poverty at all? Or that, legally speaking, they’re not even Africans, but rather nationals of such generous welfare utopias as Sweden, Denmark and Holland?
For BBC Radio 4, I’ve been searching for some idea of what the modern “British Dream” could be, through a series of frank interviews with some of the almost 3 million new arrivals to England and Wales since 2001 (the first of three programmes is broadcast at 8pm starting tonight). Time and again, our team uncovered Africans who were not any longer from Africa. They were EU citizens and actually giving up welfare rights in places like Scandinavia to come to the UK.
With all of western Europe at their feet, they are drawn to Britain – even if they are, at least as first, poorer as a consequence. Stories like theirs are a powerful corrective against the tendency to over-simplify when it comes to describing the “influx” of newcomers to Britain.

Their admiration of our society does seem to indicate some kind of “British dream” that has drawn in many millions.’

Funny how tolerant and welcoming the ‘British’ are when it suits the BBC…at all other time we are racist little Englanders….as an example today on Victoria Derbyshire…..a programme devoted to telling us how unacceptable it is to have too many white police officers as Black and ethnic minority  people do not want to be ‘policed’ by people who do not reflect their own community or race…..Muslims must police Muslim areas, Blacks police Black areas, women majority women’s areas, Leeds United football matches by officers who only support Leeds United, no middle class officers to patrol in social housing estates and so on.

It all makes sense to me….No police officer can  possibly be expected to understand the little chaps’ problems unless they too have ‘lived them’ also….the police are of course social workers now….they’re not there to enforce Britsh Law.

So ….all these immigrants just love and admire our Society…they just don’t want to actually take part in it or have anything to do with ‘whitey’….’just show me the money!’

Seems kind of racist an attitude to me…but it went unremarked of course by Derbyshire.

What is usually missing from all these BBC ‘exposes’ on immigration is the White voice…..we did get a series on the white working class….only to be told that their attitudes sprang from a deep ignorance, a lack of education, and essentially, racial prejudice…..which is why the BBC provides them with programmes like Devichand’s…to educate and enlighten….so they too can enjoy and celebrate the new diverse, multi-cultural society that has been forced upon them.

Just a shame all those white kids are all too busy out inter-marrying with their local ‘immigrants’, out eating their fast food, taking on their style, fashion and speech patterns, and  dancing to the ethnic beat to listen to some R4 bloke preaching at them on how to relate to the Black and ethnic minorities living around them.

Yes, I can see they’ve got a lot to learn from the BBC  Race Commissars.

You can learn as much about a country from its silences as you can from its obsessions. The issues politicians do not discuss are as telling and decisive as those they do.

You can also learn a lot about  media organisations from the stories which they decide to cover and those they try to hide.

The BBC has an increasing tendency to smother any report which would reflect badly upon Islam or the Muslim ‘community’,  either remaining silent on the Muslim identity of any person caught acting in an unChristian manner or if forced to admit a person is a Muslim the BBC will  attempt to claim that any anti-social actions were not as a result of Islamic teachings or belief but driven purely by crime or madness.

This report about a Muslim who had sex with a 13 year old girl is just another story of sex abuse on the face of it but you don’t have to delve very far to realise that what is revealed has far deeper implications for society….but it is a story the BBC prefer to bury:

‘A muslim who raped a 13-year-old girl he groomed on Facebook has been spared a prison sentence after a judge heard he went to an Islamic faith school where he  was taught that women are worthless….In other interviews with psychologists, Rashid claimed he had been taught in his school that ‘women are no more worthy than a lollipop that has been dropped on the ground’.

Adil Rashid, 18, claimed he was not aware that it was illegal for him to have sex with the girl because his education left him ignorant of British law.‘ [Despite ignorance of the Law being no excuse…it seems it was in this case]

Here is a Muslim who attends a Muslim faith school…schools which are being promoted by the present government, in which he is taught that women are worthless.
We don’t know the religion of the girl but you can see the connection to the sex gang in Rochdale for instance where they believed that white or non-Muslim girls were worthless trash.

You may also comment that in Islam it is perfectly legal to have sex with a girl from the age of nine… ‘as did Muhammed’….as long as they are married.

So we have a man taught that women are worthless and that under Islamic law sex with young girls is legal….and all that being taught in a ‘British school‘…based on the writings in the Koran and the Hadith…Schools being promoted by our very own British government.

All that and yet the BBC do not report this case.   It is a case which has serious implications…..if Muslims are being taught such beliefs and are encouraged to obey a different legal system to that in use by the rest of society that is a recipe for social unrest and conflict.

Allowing a completely alien cultural, social and legal system to grow within your own society is to allow a time bomb to slowly develop, one that has already seen events such as 7/7, numerous other Koran inspired terrorist actions, and of  course the recent ‘Muslim Patrols’…which are in fact only the most visible evidence of what goes on in Muslim dominated areas….such ‘enforcement’ of Muslim ideals has been occurring for a long time.

Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at Birkbeck, University of London is working on a research project on Britain’s changing population, said:

“If your country doesn’t have hard borders, you may get people creating their own boundaries below the level of the State.”

Such hard boundaries include not only the obvious national borders but the laws, culture and values of a society which if allowed to be broken down end in an ever growing disparate society, one ever more dangerous and uncontrollable…. A society in which a few men armed and ready to use violence can take control and impose their own law…as in Mali.

Below Tony Blair recognises what could be at stake….though of course he talks of ‘political Islam’…..making a distinction between that and ‘Islam’ when there is no distinction in reality…Islam has always been political, it is more politics than religion, the ‘religion’ being merely a façade, a front giving divine sanction to an ideology of conquest and colonisation.

‘But what I understand [now is] how deep this ideological movement is. — this is actually more like the phenomenon of revolutionary communism. It’s the religious or cultural equivalent of it, and its roots are deep, its tentacles are long, and its narrative about Islam stretches far further than we think into even parts of mainstream opinion who abhor the extremism, but sort of buy some of the rhetoric that goes with it.

I think a lot of people don’t understand that this is a generational-long struggle… and I think one of the things we’ve got to have and one of the debates we’ve got to have in the west is you know are we prepared for that, and are we prepared for the consequences of it?‘

The fact that Islam is political in itself and that the beliefs of the ‘radicals’ are in fact the beliefs of the  mainstream, though a mainstream that at least in public abhors the violence of the extremist but not his motives, should be understood but are not…and this is where the problem lies…a problem that the BBC has decided to ignore, refusing to engage fully in any debate about the true nature of Islam.

The BBC prefers to hide behind the usual guilt clause…that the West is to blame for the rise of Islamic extremism….as shown here by one of the BBC’s favourite sons, Jonathan Miller:

‘LaurieTaylor suggests that the revival of religion in fundamentalist forms has confounded the expectations of sociologists, and Jonathan Miller replies:
‘But we have to remember that in the case of the Islamic fundamentalism it’s associated with an objection to what they see as the military tyranny inflicted upon their people by the United States and by NATO. It’s a politically motivated thing.‘ ‘

The BBC might like to consider this:

BEFORE the recent French intervention in Mali began, 412,000 people had already left their homes in the country’s north, fleeing torture, summary executions, recruitment of child soldiers and sexual violence against women at the hands of fundamentalist militants. Late last year, in Algeria and southern Mali, I interviewed dozens of Malians from the north, including many who had recently fled. Their testimonies confirmed the horrors that radical Islamists, self-proclaimed warriors of God, have inflicted on their communities.
Policy decisions regarding this potential Afghanistan-in-the-Sahara must be informed by the fact that what is happening there is not simply a question of regional or global security, but of basic human rights.

Or this…especially relevant in relation to Faith schools when talking about Ray Honeyford:

Staging free speech
Lloyd Newson, creator of “Can We Talk About This?”, speaks to Maryam Omidi.
Lloyd Newson tackles issues of free speech, Islam and multiculturalism in his recent verbatim theatre production, which combines text drawn from interviews with movement. This is the point of departure for an interview with Maryam Omidi.

When British Muslims are demanding respect and equality in Britain why are they falling short in reciprocating it? Tolerance isn’t a one-way street.

We also interviewed Ishtiaq Ahmed, who’s associated with the Council for Mosques in Bradford. He did a survey in the late ’90s and there were students in Bradford who went to Asian nursery schools, Asian primary schools, Asian high schools and also colleges where they virtually never mixed with non-Asians. This is complicated, because there’s the issue of white flight, the issue of councils often dumping Asian families into poor areas. Honeyford was forced to resign in 1985. In 2001 the Bradford race riots erupted and many feel if we had acted on Honeyford’s central arguments and not been distracted by his tone, these riots may not have occurred. This year the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published a report saying Britain’s schools were some of the most socially and racially segregated in the world.

Kenan Malik, a broadcaster, writer and scientist, interviewed Sir Iqbal Sacranie back in 2005 when he was the head of the Muslim Council of Britain. Sir Iqbal Sacranie is a man who said that death was too good for Salman Rushdie and who has condemned homosexuality, and yet has been knighted. Where’s the prejudice and Islamophobia there? To add to this, in an interview with Malik in 2005, Sacranie told him that 95 to 98 per cent of those stopped and searched, under the anti-terrorism law, were Muslim. Malik went and researched that figure and it was actually closer to seven per cent. When you consider that the Muslim population in the UK have a tendency to live in major cities, have more children (i.e. younger members, who are the demographic most likely to be searched), the figure of seven per cent is proportionate to the Muslim population. Considering this interview took place just after the Madrid train bombings and just before the 7/7 Underground attacks, it seems surprising the number of Muslim men stopped and searched was that low. So why was the head of the Muslim Council of Britain exaggerating Islamophobia so adamantly? The constant yell of Islamophobia by some Muslim organisations and liberals is a default position and often at odds with the facts.

You couldn’t make it up.

In a report about the dearth of women speakers on programmes the BBC, Woman’s Hour no less, drops the female speaker in favour of a man:

This report is in marked contrast to the one on the BBC website which fails to mention the word ‘Muslim’….though on a radio news bulletin they do get round to it….5 men arrested….‘who claimed to be Muslim’ says the BBC.

That’ll be right…it’s all an EDL plot……..all to make Muslims look racist, homophobic and intolerant of British culture.

One thing that would prove though…is that the EDL are not racist…because there is no doubt from the videos that these ‘undercover EDL members’ have brown skin and ‘non-white’ accents….unless of course….they’ve ‘blacked up’ and adopted a rather convincing ethnic accent and are roaming Muslim areas pretending to be Muslim…is that what the BBC are implying?

Diversity…you’ve got to celebrate it…unless you’re someone claiming to be Muslim obviously.

In spite of a scientific consensus, many continue to resist or ignore the message of climate communicators – but why? What are the social and emotional explanations for this reaction?

Remember when the good comrades of the Soviet Union used to deal with their inconvenient political opponents or troublesome intellectuals by denouncing them as insane and locking them up safely out of the way in deepest Siberia?

The BBC has reinvented that technique in an attempt to discredit and silence climate change sceptics and force them out into the ‘cold‘…one of the first out of the blocks with this Kafkaesque solution was of course the now defunct Richard Black making an allusion that sceptics were abused in their childhood:

‘Why are virtually all climate “sceptics” men?…all proud possessors of a Y-chromosome….….climate scepticism has psychological roots; that it stems from a deep-seated inability or unwillingness to accept the overwhelming evidence that humanity has built with coal and lubricated with oil its own handcart whose destination board reads “climate hell”.
As one ex-scientist and now climate action advocate put it to me rather caustically a while back: “I’ve been debating the science with them for years, but recently I realised we shouldn’t be talking about the science but about something unpleasant that happened in their childhood”.‘

…And the BBC continues with repeated claims from its journalists that sceptics are ignorant, unqualified and driven by a political or industrial agenda…..and note the recent use of ‘Blogger’ as a description of all sceptics.

The latest smear is yet another attempt to label  sceptics as ‘in denial’, in need of psychoanalysis and treatment to remedy this ‘perverse state of mind’

In Thinking Aloud (16 mins in) (Via Bishop Hill) the BBC bring in Sally Weintrobe, a psychoanalyst,  and Paul Hoggett, to add the weight of  academic qualifications to their smear.   Weintrobe tells us that psychological techniques are used by people to deny or rebel against Society’s impress…ie climate change is real but scepticism is merely a childish response pushing against authority.

It does look likely that Weintrobe is not merely looking at climate change from a psychoanalyst’s view but is in fact a ‘campaigner’.

The programme began by the presenter telling us that sceptics indulge in ‘The security of ignorance’……so no doubt the angle he is coming from then.

Weintrobe tells us that it is increasingly clear that understanding people’s responses to climate change is more important than understanding climate change.

Where have we heard that before?

Now if you have been having a roam around the blogosphere reading the various articles by climate change advocates you will have noticed the change in emphasis….forget the science, that’s settled….it is now all about communicating the ‘reality’ to the ignorant masses…we must persuade them to believe.

I just wonder who has been talking to Weintrobe…both her and her fellow psychoanalyst on the programme, Paul Hoggett, seem remarkably up to date with the latest ‘narrative’ in climate change politics.

Has Harrabin or Dr Joe Smith been in touch to guide their thinking…or have they been soliciting her advice on how to deal with those who don’t have the Faith yet?

[Interesting link from a comment on ‘Bishop Hill‘ which highlights a comment from the very same Joe Smith on a YouTube video featuring…‘Speeches given at the book launch of ‘Engaging With Climate Change: Psychoanalytic and Interdisciplinary Perspectives’, edited by Sally Weintrobe. October 2012′…  Smith says….’The discussion and the book are really welcome: this is a long-neglected corner of the conversation about how we cope with the emergence of new understandings of global environmental change. Joe’]

The question Weintrobe says is most important is ‘Why is knowledge of climate change reality so resisted?’

Possibly because the ‘reality’…that man made CO2 is the main driver of  global warming is as yet unproven.
The major fault with the programme, and which makes the programme kind of redundant, is that it avoids the inconvenient fact that most climate sceptics acknowledge that the planet has warmed…..they just disagree on the cause….therefore they are not ‘in denial’ about a fact….they just question the conclusions drawn by scientists, politicians, green pressure groups and others with deep vested interests that CO2 is the main driver.

The programme begins by saying ‘We take it as a given that climate change is happening’ (the unspoken part being…caused by man)…..‘our lack of concern can only be explained by unconscious factors.‘

Apparently people are too scared and anxious about the consequences of climate change to admit it is happening…they cannot cope with reality…don’t worry….psychoanalysis has a lot to offer we are told.

Our grief at the death of the planet is too great so we deflect our grief as the landscape cries tears….the guilt, anxiety and worry will just build up…..you need to engage with climate change before it is too late.

The Truth is what helps you!

Your fantasies, feelings and sense of identity can conflict with the reality…they can be treated.

There are three types of denial….industrial and politically driven denial, personal negation (which is merely the first step on the road to acceptance of the truth) and the very worst kind…as indulged in by climate sceptics…..DISAVOWAL, where we know the truth but turn a blind eye to it.

Criminal madmen?

It is unfortunate that we are in a culture of denial…..a ‘perverse state of mind’.

We are increasingly aware of ‘weird weather’ (heard that before?) and so must minimise reality and disavow it to protect ourselves from dealing with it.

Have no fear though…we can move beyond this….by understanding our own depression and getting treatment.

So that’s clear….anyone who expresses doubt about climate change is in denial, disavowal in fact, is depressed and in a perverse state of mind.

Well, all good fun….but it was a serious point I opened this post with…this is nothing less than an attempt by the BBC to label anyone who has doubts about climate change as psychologically disturbed and in need of treatment.

It is surely the BBC that has lost hold of its senses in propagating this nonsense which is no more than politically inspired mud flinging aimed at silencing and discrediting climate sceptics…and as made clear…this is not an isolated incidence…it is part of a concerted campaign by BBC journalists to undermine and stigmatise sceptics.

Keep paying the license fee.